


Ginger Snaps: The Last Straw

by Blisterdude



Category: Ginger Snaps (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Homecoming, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Past Lives, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, Sibling Incest, The End Is Nigh, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-18 18:36:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9397847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blisterdude/pseuds/Blisterdude
Summary: The trouble with digging up the past, Brigitte always thought, is sometimes you find something. And sometimes, that something was looking for you.Sequel to Ginger Snaps: Reunion





	1. Buried In Books

**Author's Note:**

> I've been plotting this out for a bit, but here's the first chapter. Unlike Reunion, which was more of a slice-of-life character study, this definitely has more of an actual plot to it.

“Rock, paper, scissors?”

 

“I’m going.”

 

“Cmon, it’ll be quick, B.”

 

“No.”

 

“Don’t make me play dirty.”

 

Brigitte closed her eyes, breathing in and out slowly, and leaned back against the car.

 

“Ginge, you look like some fucking scene kid with those white streaks in your hair, that or a homeless elf.” She explained, patiently. “You stick out like a…”

 

It was that time of the month. Har. Har. Har, Brigitte thought, dryly.

 

“They’re totally in fashion now, right?” Ginger pressed, adamant.

 

“They aren’t.” Ghost chimed in, from inside the car.

 

“Who asked you?” Her sister frowned, then her eyes suddenly widened as if an idea had occurred to her. “I’ll rip her throat out if you leave me in the car!” Ginger snapped her fingers, beaming excitedly.

 

Brigitte opened her eyes sharply, just in time to see an elderly couple passing them on the pavement, giving them a worrisome look. She tried what she hoped was a reassuring smile, but the two hurried on, hunching low and pulling their coats around them tighter against the cold.

 

She stared at her sister like she’d grown another head, not quite able to connect the Ginger from the past, who she’d grown up with, with the Ginger who’d become a killer, with the ‘ghost’ Ginger who’d tortured her for three years, in turn with the Ginger who she…well…the one she had now.

 

Brigitte supposed she’d loved them all, in one way or another. She couldn’t do anything else.

 

She cast a weary glance over the plain, grey concrete shape of the town’s public library and archives, not expecting much when all she really had to go on was whatever Ginger happened to remember from her dreams.

 

But considering she’d had one of her own, she couldn’t deny that…there must have been something to them, or behind them. Some thread, or trail they could follow to…to what? Didn’t know that yet.

 

“Stop looking at me like that.” Ghost said, worriedly, pulling Brigitte from her thoughts.

 

She turned to find Ginger leaning on the car by the rear window, leering at Ghost, grinning widely.

 

“What? Just a bit peckish is all.” Ginger snapped her teeth, playfully.

 

Brigitte crossed her arms, closed her eyes and counted to ten. She got as far as seven before Ghost and Ginger were arguing again.

 

“I said I was sorry!” Ghost retorted.

 

“Should’ve thought of that before you locked my sister in your fuckin’ cellar, crazy.” Ginger cut back.

 

“We’re all going.” Brigitte growled, through gritted teeth, glaring at the two.

 

“I hate to burst your bubble, B, but we go walkin’ around with the crackpot and it’s gonna cause some comment, since now the cops think we _kidnapped_ her on top of everything else.” Ginger explained.

 

Brigitte gritted her teeth and tried to count to ten again.

 

It was true enough. After blowing out of town and heading north for a day or so, they eventually stopped at a gas station. As Ginger was heading inside to pay, Ghost spotted the papers with their faces plastered over them, and various damning headlines insinuating their connection to drugs, a gang shoot-out, sporadic violence and being seen with another missing girl from the Happier Times Rehabilitation Clinic, all in some small town she’d already forgotten the name of.

 

Brigitte had grabbed Ginger before she’d put a foot through the door, bundled them into the car and torn out of there as fast as the crummy car would take them.

 

She got as far as six.

 

“It’s not as if I told them that.” Ghost muttered.

 

“And we’re so fucking grateful, you albino goblin.” Ginger cut back. “Who was it that painted a fucking bullseye on our heads to begin with?” She took a step toward Ghost.

 

“Enough.” Brigitte growled. She glanced at Ghost and shrugged off her hoodie. “Put that on, and put the hood up. And you, you’re already hardly recognisable.” Brigitte quipped dryly, turning to her sister, eyes lingering on her hair, longer than usual and streaked with white and grey, and her face, which had taken on a thinner, angular shape as the transformation took hold.

 

“Thanks, B.” Ginger rolled her eyes. “It’s nice to be told I look like a freak.”

 

“Yeah, but you’re my freak.” Brigitte shrugged, going back to the car.

 

“What about you?” She heard Ghost ask, as she zipped up her black hoodie and tugged the hood over her head. “Aren’t you…cold?”

 

Brigitte paused to reflect that she was only wearing a thin, long sleeved green top over a black t-shirt. And that she wasn’t cold. At all. Slightly troubling, that.

 

“Nope.” She replied, plucking out her oversized beanie from the car and dragging it over her head, pulling it down over her hair and forehead, down to her brow.

 

“We don’t get cold much.” Ginger explained. “Werewolf superpowers, right?”

 

“And the only cost is slowly turning into a bloodthirsty creature every month, and then spending three nights on all fours, covered in hair.” Brigitte locked the car and turned back to face them.

 

“Killer disguise, B.” Ginger quipped, sarcastically.

 

Brigitte flipped her the bird and stalked past, up the stairs to the library.

 

“Let’s just get this over with. Did you write down everything you remembered from your dreams? Like I asked?” Brigitte glanced back, checking Ginger and Ghost were following. “Repeatedly?” She added, wearily.

 

It had been like trying to get Ginger to do her homework back in school. Ginger didn’t do homework.

 

“Yes, ma’am.” Ginger sniggered, waving a folded sheet of paper. “Names, places, bits and pieces, fragments of things that I saw…anything I could remember. Doubt it makes a lot of sense. I dreamt it and its nonsense to me.” She shrugged, passing it up to her.

 

“We just need something…real. Solid. One lead.” Brigitte muttered, scanning Ginger’s scratchy, sloping penmanship with some trepidation. “One thing to go on.” She started up the stairs again, the others in tow.

 

“Real?” Ginger probed, a touch reproachful.

 

Brigitte winced. Poor choice of words.

 

“You know what I mean, Ginge.” She went on, looking back at Ginger’s notes. “They’re not likely to have anything about werewolves…or curses, magical old ladies in the wilderness, prophetic Indian wildman hunters born to fight…things like us…y’know what I mean?”

 

She stalked on to the glass doors, waiting while a group of students, talking and laughing, bustled out and past them. Must have been around her age, all smiles, all happy, all completely unaware she was even standing there.

 

It seemed like no matter how much some things changed, other stayed exactly the same. It would have been funny, if it wasn’t so crushingly depressing.

 

“She’s got a point.” Ghost murmured from behind her.

 

“Who asked you, spooky?” Ginger cut back.

 

Brigitte stared dead ahead, pulled open the glass door, closed her eyes and started to count to ten.

 

“Stop growling at me!” Ghost whined.

 

Brigitte got to three.

 

…

 

The Northern Legion Trading Company.

 

Brigitte scribbled it down among her own, clearer notes, copying it from Ginger’s, and went back to the stack of books and folders she’d spent the last half hour accumulating. Not that there was a lot to really go on, from Ginger’s confused scribblings. A few names, some guy called Wallace Rowlands, Fort Bailey, Hunter, James, Reverend Gilbert, the Elder, some vague details that gave her an approximate date, but nothing much. No locations, no concrete dates, no real proof.

 

She shoved two books aside, going for a book on Canada’s early colonial history. Flicked through it quickly looking for anything, any mention about British trade companies active in the country back then. There were a few, it turned out, competing and squabbling over who had the biggest slice of the big empty space on their maps.

 

The Northern Legion Trading Company was one of the smaller ones, apparently. Squeezed between the bigger trading companies that were active across the British Empire at the time, having only contracts in the fledgling dominion of Canada.

 

Brigitte could work with that. If she could find some records, or archives of those contracts, then maybe she could pin down something about what happened, if anything really happened at all.

 

If they were all really lost, the entire outpost, like in Ginger’s dreams, then there had to be some note of it somewhere. Fort Bailey’s loss, its garrison’s disappearance, someone had to have noted it down somewhere, even if nobody knew what actually happened. Like Roanoke, or the Mary Celeste.

 

And if she could just find that record, that note, then maybe she could find out _where_ it was.

 

It wasn’t much, but it would be one step closer to making something of the dream, and Ginger’s. To finding some meaning in it all.

 

“Oh god I’m bored.” Ginger muttered, head buried in her arms, sprawled across the table across from her.

 

Brigitte looked up from the book, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light.

 

They were tucked away at a table in the far corner, between a ring of shelves, obscured from view to most of the library. One reason was for privacy, the other was the fire escape stuck between two other shelves, a few feet away. Brigitte felt better having a quick way out to hand.

 

“You could help.” Brigitte replied, more out of habit than anything, knowing Ginger wouldn’t.

 

“Nah.” Ginger looked up, resting her chin on her arms and letting out a tired puff of air. “Never was much for that ‘learning’ thing.” Her hair had fallen across most of her face, but Brigitte saw her grinning through the red and silver tangle.

 

Brigitte pulled out a sheet of paper and another pen and slid them across to her sister.

 

“Draw me a picture or something.” She insisted, glancing up the table. Ghost’s seat was empty. “Hey, where-”

 

“I dunno B,” Ginger took the paper and pen and immediately started scratching something into it. “, and to be honest, I don’t care where the freaky kid went. Knowing my luck she’s still around.”

 

Brigitte scowled, and moved to get up.

 

“I’ll find her.”

 

Ginger’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She looked down, and immediately felt the shakes start. Shit.

 

“No, no. We’ve been here long enough.” Ginger looked up at her. “I’ll go, okay? You just finish with…all of…this stuff.” Ginger gestured helplessly at the confusing pile of books and paper.

 

“Fine.” Brigitte sat back down, pulling her hand away as nonchalantly as she could, gripping it with her other hand and tucking them under the table.

 

Ginger threw her a smile and got up, wandering out of sight into the library proper, muttering to herself.

 

“Alright you little spaz, where are you now…”

 

Brigitte watched her go, then lifted her hands out from under the table. Her hands were still shaking, but it was dying down already. She could feel a headache coming on, at the edges of her brain. Another one.

 

She’d been getting them more frequently lately. For about the same time she’d been having these…episodes. Her hands would shake. Her stomach would churn. Headaches. Nausea.

 

Brigitte struggled to concentrate. Think about the work. Think about the work. Think through the panic, the worry, the stress. Ginger was alive. She was alive. They were alive.

 

She hadn’t killed Ginger. She hadn’t. She’d been wrong. Three years. Wrong.

 

She breathed in and out slowly, and the trembling died down again. Her gut settled. A coolness seemed to wash over her, dulling the flaring ache in her skull.

 

Brigitte glanced back at the corner of the shelf leading to the main hub as she quickly dug into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, sticking one in her mouth. She pulled a lighter out of her back pocket and lit it, hurriedly, only relaxing as she took the first long draw.

 

Placebo. But she’d take what she could get.

 

Brigitte wasn’t stupid. Not entirely anyway. She had an idea what was wrong. And it wasn’t lycanthropy, it wasn’t the monkshood, and it wasn’t withdrawal from her lapse with the drugs back in ‘moosehill’, with Mike a few weeks ago.

 

She had a good idea what was wrong, but that didn’t matter, because there wasn’t anything she could do about it right now except reminding herself of the obvious. Ginger was alive. Ginger was alive. She hadn’t killed Ginger. She hadn’t murdered her sister. Ginger was alive. Ginger was-

 

“That’s a bad habit.” Ginger appeared around the corner, a sullen Ghost in tow as she had the cigarette mid-draw again.

 

“Yeah, but y’know, for some reason I’m not that worried about cancer these days.” Brigitte exhaled a stream of smoke wafting across the table.

 

“Librarian’s coming.” Ghost hissed, as they sat down.

 

Brigitte spat the cigarette into one of the books and slammed it shut, dispersing the smoke as much as she could while Ginger looked on, apparently amused.

 

“Shut up.” Brigitte snapped, tucking the defaced book under all the others.

 

“Didn’t say anything.” Ginger smirked, going back to her sketching.

 

The librarian, a shrewish old woman, shuffled into view, glaring over at them and heading for a set of shelves past their table. She’d obviously come over to check on them, but Brigitte appreciated the effort the old bag was going through to _appear_ as if she wasn’t, if nothing else.

 

The woman eventually shuffled off again, leaving them a parting glare, then disappeared behind the shelves.

 

“I think she likes us.” Ginger sniggered, not looking up from her scribbling.

 

Brigitte pulled out the book she’d hidden, grimacing as she opened it briefly, then closed it again. Without a word, she lowered it to the floor and slid it across the carpet, under the shelves at the back, out of sight.

 

“Write-off, was it?” Ghost asked.

 

“Let’s hope nobody has a burning desire to know what Canada’s top export was at the height of colonial expansion.” Brigitte muttered as she reached for another book.

 

“Maple syrup, probably.” Ginger quipped.

 

“Was there a lot of call for that you think?” Ghost muttered, shooting her sister a look.

 

“Always.” Ginger cut back, smirking.

 

Brigitte tuned them out and tried to focus. Northern Legion Trading Company. She flipped her way through several more pages of stuff about expeditions, ships, trade routes…endless, endless, endless…

 

…and then she saw a name she recognised. Rowlands. Chief Factor Wallace Rowlands, one of the Northern Legion’s most promising rising administrators. He’d marched off with nearly fifty men, forging deep into the frontiers of the uncharted Canadian wilderness, established Fort Bailey and then a year or so later…nobody ever heard from them again.

 

No men came back with things to trade, or to pick up supplies. No letters, or messages. Nothing. And they couldn’t afford to send out a party to find them, after the loss, apparently. Although to Brigitte, it sounded more like they just didn’t want the news to get out.

 

But it was real. Rowlands was real. Fort Bailey was real. But there was a problem. Nothing here said exactly _where_ it had been. She needed old records. And this town wasn’t likely to have that kind of archive. The only place she could think that would was…

 

…was home. Fuck.

 

“Ginger, I think we’re onto something here.” She said, reluctantly. “But-”

 

“Well I told you I believed it. It was just you doubting things.” Ginger retorted.

 

“Well…it was a dream.” Brigitte shrugged, noting down what she could. “This at least proves…some of it might be legit. Somehow.”

 

“Prophetic visions?” Ghost chimed in, leaning on the table. “Are you sure you two didn’t just mix something else up in that monkshood?”

 

“We’re fucking werewolves you little-” Ginger snarled, looking up.

 

“Ginger.” Brigitte hissed, nodding toward the main desk.

 

Ginger sat back, pursing her lips irritably and slapping the table. She shot Ghost a bitter stare, causing the girl to flinch. Brigitte found her eyes drawn down to what Ginger had been drawing, all this time.

 

“What the hell is that?” She asked, half-turning her head to try and make it out.

 

“Oh.” Ginger blinked, expression suddenly shifting into a proud grin. “It’s a heart being crushed in the death-grip of a werewolf claw.”

 

Brigitte stared.

 

“It’s symbolic, B.” Ginger added, earnestly.

 

“…of course it is.” Brigitte muttered, still staring at the visceral, surprisingly detailed image. “I take it that’s supposed to be your…claw?”

 

“Yeah.” She nodded, emphatically. “And that’s your heart. See, I love you and-” She pointed at the heart, as if there was some chance she’d miss it.

 

“I think I get it.” Brigitte dropped her head in her hands, resting her elbows on the table.

 

“Gross.” Ghost grumbled.

 

“I’ll draw you next.” Ginger smirked.

 

Brigitte snorted, wiping her bleary eyes and looking at the scattered books and pages of notes.

 

“We should call it-” She started, then stopped. Something…some…feeling…had the hairs on the back of her neck on end. She heard the doors to the library open and close, boots, heavy boots of a number of people coming in.

 

Ginger had one eye on her, her head half-turned toward the sound as well.

 

Voices. Brigitte heard the scratchy buzz of a police radio.

 

“B.” Ginger turned sharply back to her.

 

“I know.” Brigitte replied, throwing together the papers piling the books as quietly as she could. “Get the fuck out, Ghost. Get to the car. Ginger.” She was on her feet, stuffing her things in her backpack and tossing it to her sister.

 

“What?” Ghost stammered, confused.

 

“Got it.” Caught the bag and grabbed Ghost’s arm, dragging her toward the fire escape. “Cops you idiot. C’mon.”

 

“Cops? But-” Ghost started.

 

“I know. We’re clearly masters of disguise.” Ginger grumbled, sarcastically. “B?”

 

“Busy.” Brigitte gripped the table and pushed it between the shelves.

 

“Alright girls, remain calm!” An authoritative voice called out. “We just want to talk!”

 

“Sure!” Brigitte called back, grabbing the fire extinguisher. “Get to the car.” She hissed.

 

Ginger nodded and dragged Ghost outside.

 

Three officers came into view, followed by the librarian. The first, raised his hand, seeing her sister and Ghost leaving.

 

“Hey, wait-”

 

“Sorry.” Brigitte said, not feeling very sorry at all as she hosed the cops down with the jet of foam.

 

There was some confusion, stumbling and swearing. Brigitte kicked the table onto its side, as the cops stumbled forward. They got caught up in it and went down in a painful looking tangle of limbs.

 

“Jesus, what the hell-” One cop growled, dragging himself through the foamy melee.

 

Brigitte swung the extinguisher, catching the man in the stomach and winding him. She figured that was enough and bolted for the fire escape, grabbing a fallen chair on the way. Turning sharply once she was outside, she pulled the fire escape shut and jammed the chair against the handle, wedging it in the uneven concrete surface outside.

 

Inside, the officers and the librarian were struggling apart and over the table.

 

A car horn sounded, sharply. She turned right and saw the road out front. Ginger and Ghost were in the car. She broke into a run, piling into the car as Ginger held the door open. The police car was parked in front of them. As Brigitte started the car, she noticed it slanting, oddly and looked at Ginger.

 

“I fucked up their tyres.” She grinned and held up a hand and waggled her fingers. Her almost-clawed fingers.

 

“Nice.” Brigitte snorted, pulling them past and down the road, away from the library.

 

“So…what are we doing? What did you find out?” Ginger asked, eventually.

 

“The company was real. The fort was real. And the guy in charge, Rowlands, was real.” Brigitte replied. “But…”

 

“…but?” Ghost leaned forward from the backseat.

 

“Hey, put your damn seatbelt on.” Ginger glared back. “Yeah, ‘but’?” She repeated.

 

“I don’t know where it is. We need to find records. Information.” Brigitte continued.

 

She followed the road out of town, turning south. She wondered if Ginger would actually notice.

 

“We’re going back the way we came.” Ginger said, slowly, eyes fixed on her.

 

“Yeah.” Brigitte nodded.

 

“Toronto Archives?” Ghost ventured, now buckled in.

 

“Are you fucking serious?” Ginger scoffed. “We’re going…you’re taking us…” She sat back in her seat, shaking her head.

 

“We’re going home.” Brigitte sighed.


	2. Way Down We Go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Titled after Kaleo's 'Way Down We Go'. I totally wrote this to flow like a kind of montage, or an opening credits sequence. Hopefully it worked!

They followed long a winding roads and highways, sometimes smaller lanes and tracks, cutting through forests, past lakes and rivers, always south. Their route wasn’t direct, since Brigitte was trying to avoid too many toll gates, checkpoints or busy intersections. Anywhere they might be recognised.

 

Three years she’d wandered and meandered her way north, no aim but survival, no desire but fighting to hold on to the bits of her that made her Brigitte, and now she was going back, in fast forward.

 

…

 

Brigitte had pulled them over in a lay-by for the night. Her eyes were sore and her head was pounding away in her skull. She’d been driving for hours.

 

She glanced outside, into the dark. Through the dim glow of the scattered lights, stretching down the road in either direction, she could see the snow falling. Heavy, steady. It was settling quickly. Her breath fogged up the window each time she breathed out.

 

She supposed it was cold, although she couldn’t really feel it. A ‘benefit’ of the curse, she supposed.

 

Ghost was tucked up in the front seat with all their coats, jackets and spare clothes since she _could_ feel the cold, and she and Ginger were tucked up in the back with each other. Mostly out of necessity, since there wasn’t a lot of room.

 

That hadn’t stopped Ginger getting frisky and exploiting the opportunity. Brigitte was pressed up against the door, with Ginger sort of coiled around her, arms circling her body, her head resting on her chest, her legs tangled in hers.

 

Brigitte looked down at Ginger’s head. It had been a long time since they’d been quite this close. Physically. In other ways too. Like…different ways.

 

She moved her hand up to Ginger’s head, awkwardly stroking her hair. She’d wasn’t really sure what to do, to be honest. Ginger was the only person she’d ever been what you’d call _intimate_ with, but even back then, as questionably close as they’d been, as sisters, they’d never really crossed that..line. The one people didn’t really talk about because…you just didn’t. Siblings didn’t do that.

 

But she and Ginger had always been something more than that, or less, or different. Sisters. Friends. Stuck together. Stuck with each other. One following the other. Tag-along. Hand in hand. Arm in arm. Blood-tied. Bound by fate.

 

Brigitte wasn’t sure about fate. And she wasn’t sure yet whose side it was on.

 

Ginger’s hand was suddenly sliding under her sleeveless top, up her stomach. She tried not to flinch.

 

She wasn’t sure what to call what they were doing. Ginger hadn’t spent much time dwelling on it. Brigitte had told her she wanted things, to be more than just sisters, and Ginger had taken it on board.

 

With some degree of zeal, Brigitte noticed, as Ginger’s hand made it to her chest, feeling her up through her bra.

 

“Ginger.” She whispered.

 

“’m awake.” Ginger mumbled, into her stomach.

 

“Obviously.” Brigitte replied. “Unless you’re starting to get touchy-feely in your sleep.”

 

“Might be.” Ginger shifted on the backseat, pushing herself up closer.

 

Brigitte felt Ginger’s lips on her bare shoulder, travelling to the base of her neck and up from there. She’d pause, and nip at her skin with her teeth every now and then. Brigitte bit her lip. Her hand slid down Ginger’s back to her waist.

 

“We never talked about this.” Brigitte muttered before Ginger’s lips were suddenly, hungrily on hers.

 

“Not sure about somethin’, B?” Ginger’s hands were on her shoulders as her older sister reared up, over her, her face hovering inches away, her eyes boring into her own.

 

Brigitte stared back.

 

Not sure? Not judging by what certain…areas of her body were doing. No, she was sure what she wanted.

 

She leaned up, kissing Ginger again, pushing her hand into sister’s jeans. Ginger pushed her back, grinning.

 

It was fucked up, but they’d always been fucked up. This just seemed like natural progression.

 

…

 

Brigitte and Ginger shared a concerned look.

 

“I’m not sure about this, B.” Ginger said, with a slight lisp. Her teeth had stretched into protruding fangs.

 

Brigitte frowned slightly, sympathetic. Ginger still seemed to feel the effects of lycanthropy worse than she did, closer to the full moon.

 

“She’s got this.” Brigitte insisted.

 

They were standing by the car, parked off the road outside a small, locally-owned garden centre. It was way out on its own, a few miles from the nearest town. The countryside around it, the trees, the grass, all blanketed in white.

 

“I thought you said we had enough monkshood.” Ginger shot her a look.

 

“We do.” Brigitte replied, crossing her arms. “I don’t know if you noticed though, Ginge, but it’s getting harder for us to just wander into a shop and buy a bottle of milk, know what I mean?”

 

“I guess.” Ginger huffed. “I hate counting on the crazy little shi-”

 

Brigitte snarled, through her gritted teeth, before she could stop herself. Ginger’s eyes widened in surprise for a moment and she held up a hand.

 

“Okay, okay.” She smiled weakly. “We’ll wait.”

 

Brigitte stared back across the road at the garden centre. Its glass window panelling all frosted and clouded over, only a blurry green fog of sorts could be seen from the outside. The dull glow of the cheap lighting cast a yellowish tint over the snow around the building.

 

“Why are you so soft on her anyway, B?” Ginger went on, suddenly. “She killed people. She tried to cage you like a fuckin’ animal.”

 

“We’ve killed people.”

 

“You haven’t. Not for lack of tryin’, mind. But you haven’t.” Ginger argued. “I’m still here.”

 

Brigitte dug her fingers into her arms, willing them not to shake. Not to shake. Not now.

 

“I killed Tyler.”

 

“No, that was me.” Ginger smiled, crookedly.  “I remember that much.”

 

“I left him out there with you. His blood is on my hands.” Brigitte insisted, remembering the fear in his voice, his face as she shut the door in his face. But she’d been so angry, so angry…

 

“Well it was in my teeth.” Her sister shrugged.

 

Brigitte glared at her sharply.

 

“Sorry.” Ginger added, eventually.

 

Brigitte breathed out slowly, watching the cold stream of air float up and disappear.

 

“She’s as old as we were, when it happened.”

 

Ginger turned to face her, frowning.

 

“You’re projecting.” She said.

 

Brigitte shrugged.

 

“She can’t stay with us forever. It’s dangerous.” Ginger persisted. “ _We’re_ dangerous, B. Like, really fuckin’ dangerous. I mean look at me, look at you!” Ginger grabbed her shoulder and turned them to face their reflections in the car window.

 

Brigitte’s own face had taken on a…less than human character. Longer, sharper. Dark eyes. Pointed, stretched ears she’d tried to conceal under her hair. Her teeth weren’t quite as fucked as Ginger’s, but there was a noticeable…shape to them, one she couldn’t totally hide just by pursing her lips.

 

“I know.”

 

“And I’m not sure if you noticed or not, but I can’t fuckin’ stand the bi-”

 

“Yeah, picked up on that.” Brigitte cut her off.

 

Their eyes met in their reflections.

 

“I didn’t want this.” Ginger said, quietly.

 

She felt Ginger’s hand fumble for hers, their fingers locking together.

 

“I never had time to work out what I wanted.” Brigitte replied. “Besides you.”

 

Ginger pulled her around, so they were leaning against the car, face to face.

 

“You’ve got that.” Ginger smirked. “And maybe…maybe we can find something, out of all this weird shit.”

 

“It’s a thought.”

 

“Hey, I’ve got your stuff!” Ghost jogged across the road, out of breath and lugging two bags along. “I thought you said we were in a hurry?”

 

“I just told you that because I don’t like you.” Ginger grinned, watching Ghost stop by the back door.

 

Ghost stared, as Ginger calmly got into the passenger seat.

 

“I hate you.” Ghost grumbled, getting in the back.

 

“Hate you too, gremlin.”

 

Brigitte opened the door to the driver’s seat, drumming her fingers on the roof. She started to count to ten.

 

…

 

“Stop struggling.”

 

“It’s in my eyes!” Ghost whined, squirming against her.

 

“You’re making it worse.” Brigitte argued, rolling up the sleeves of her top and grabbing Ghost’s shoulders again. “Deep breath.” Then she dunked Ghost’s head in the river again.

 

Ghost flailed her arms, spluttering and gasping as Brigitte worked her hands and fingers through the girls hair, sticky and coated with the dye she was struggling to apply to it.

 

“I gotta say, B, I’m not sure this is your natural calling.” Ginger was sitting nearby, watching from a safe distance.

 

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. She’d picked up some dark hair dye for Ghost thinking it’d make her harder to recognise.

 

“Fuck off.” Brigitte growled, pulling Ghost up and working the dye into her hair as much as she could. “We can’t do anything with ours, it just goes back to normal too fast.”

 

“Come on, Brigitte, can we sto-” Ghost complained, as Brigitte dunked her again.

 

The car wasn’t far off, parked at the end of a rough lane that led to a series of walks in the area. At this time in the evening, there wasn’t anyone else around. Which was just as well.

 

It was getting late. The limited light from the sun through the heavy clouds was fading fast. It was going to be another cold, dark night, but… at least they weren’t going to have to spend it in the car. Across the gravelled car park, was a small cabin that looked like it doubled as a ranger station and a shop. And nobody was home.

 

“It’s in my eyes!” Ghost gasped, as she came up for air again.

 

“Stop moving then!” Brigitte insisted, raking her sticky fingers through the girl’s hair.

 

By this point, she was pretty sure her arms had caught more of the dye. She swore under her breath, repeatedly.

 

“Ouch! Nails!” Ghost cried out. “You’re enjoying this. This is about that thing with the cellar.”

 

“Sorry.” Brigitte muttered. “And don’t be stupid. I’d never hold a grudge.”

 

Ginger laughed sharply.

 

“I knew it, this is about that thing-…ow!” Ghost whined again.

 

“Good idea, B.” Ginger waved a hand, wiggling her own, clawed fingers. “I’ll take over if you want?”

 

Ghost paused in her struggling, staring worriedly at Ginger, who was smiling widely.

 

“…no. You’re good, Brigitte.” The girl managed, reluctantly.

 

“Thought so.” Brigitte nodded, dunking her under again.

 

…

 

It had never really occurred to her how far from home she was, in three years. The roads seemed endless. Another day come and gone, as they wound south. The sun arcing east to west over them as they went.

 

It was slow going, anyway, their car not being in the best shape to begin with. And having to stop for gas, food, sleep…on top of trying to avoid too much attention, avoid being recognised…

 

…it would be a lot harder further south. Bigger towns, cities…

 

They’d manage though, somehow.

 

“Low on petrol again, B.” Ginger tapped the dial with her finger.

 

“I noticed.” Brigitte eyed it warily. She looked back to the road, seeing a sign indicating a gas station was ahead. “It’ll keep.”

 

“I’m hungry, too.” Ghost piped up from the back.

 

“Likewise.” Ginger turned back, baring her teeth. “You volunteering?”

 

“…uh…” Ghost managed.

 

Brigitte glanced over at her sister. She was looking worse each day. Hair streaked with grey and white. Skin getting paler…paler even than Brigitte’s normally seemed to be. She looked further back and saw Ghost recoiling slightly, worriedly, as her sister leered back. Her newly dyed darker hair framed her face.

 

“We’ll stop.” Brigitte switched lanes, taking the turn off. “Ghost, you’re going to have to-”

 

“I know, I know, I’ll do the shopping.” Ghost sighed, sitting back.

 

Brigitte pulled up by a pump, digging her wallet out of her jeans and tossing it back. Ghost got out and headed to the main building.

 

“Stay.” Brigitte said to her sister, as she climbed out, pulling the hood of her jacket over her head as she did.

 

“Woof.” Ginger smirked, eyes following her closely.

 

Brigitte gave her a sour look as she grabbed a hose and started filling the tank. Her gaze wandered across the lot, not many other cars were around. She looked across at the main building. Racks of newspapers were out front.

 

She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to it. Seeing photos of them across the front, under headline after headline. Old pictures of them, as kids, of them in high school three years ago, and the blurry recent ones Ghost had put out online.

 

Brigitte couldn’t admit it to Ginger, but part of her, a big part of her, was all up for just ditching the girl in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. She was worried if she did, then she’d really do it. She wasn’t exactly fond of Ghost, either.

 

But that wasn’t the point. It was like…if she just abandoned her, it was like giving up another piece of herself. Chipping away at the fracturing edifice that she thought of as really Brigitte. It was about more than Ghost, it was about her. She believed, mostly, that if she could keep a grip on herself, she could keep a grip on Ginger.

 

“You alright, B? Staring into space a bit there.”

 

“Fine.” She put back the hose and nodded to Ghost, in the shop.

 

Brigitte paused short of getting back in the car, as she looked again at the newspapers. All photos of her, headlines about them. They had been for the last week or so since the incident. But it occurred to her, there was nothing about Jason.

 

No mention of him, or Mike, for that matter. Mike had seen what had happened, what Jason had become, and done to his gang. He’d seen what she and Ginger were changing into. But none of the papers had anything about that.

 

“You’ve got that look on your face. The one you always get when you’re thinking about something bad.” Ginger murmured.

 

She wasn’t sure whether she’d killed Jason or not, but she knew she’d left him in bad shape. In wolf form, bleeding out, and the cops had only been minutes away, they _must_ have found something…

 

“Ginge, don’t you think it’s odd there’s nothing in the news about finding a fucking big wolf-creature bleeding to death in Mike’s drug den?” Brigitte dropped into the driver’s seat, looking across at her sister.

 

“…um…”

 

“Or no mention of the fact that Mike’s goons were torn to fucking pieces?” Brigitte went on.

 

“…well…”

 

“Doesn’t something seem…wrong about that?” She pressed.

 

“No.” Ginger replied.

 

“Seriously?”

 

“No, of course it fucking does.” Ginger snorted. “But don’t you think we have enough to worry about?”

 

They both jumped slightly as Ghost clambered into the back of the car, lugging a couple of bags, then looked back at each other.

 

“Point.” Brigitte conceded, shrugging. “Let’s go.”

 

“Hey, you get any Fanta?” Ginger leaned back.

 

“Yeah, think I got one.” Ghost replied, digging through the bags.

 

“Cool, give it.” Ginger held out a hand.

 

“I want it.” Ghost retorted.

 

“I said give it you little-”

 

Brigitte considered beating her brains out on the steering wheel, for a moment, then started the car and tried counting to ten.

 

She made it all the way to five.

 

…

 

“Back in a minute, nature calls.” Ginger bolted into the woods.

 

“Didn’t need to…know that.” Brigitte groaned, sitting down on the hood of the car, watching the road.

 

Occasionally a lone car would shoot past, in either direction. Besides that, the area was totally quiet.

 

Ghost opened the back door and dropped her legs out. Brigitte could feel the girl watching her. She had a feeling she knew what was coming, she’d been expecting it for a few days.

 

“Go on, ask.” Brigitte sighed. “Can’t bear that conflicted look on your face anymore.”

 

Ghost looked surprised, for a moment, then she frowned.

 

“Are you and Ginger-”

 

“Yes.” Brigitte replied.

 

“As in…the two of you…”

 

“Yes.”

 

“…but, you’re sisters...”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And werewolves.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And sisters.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And you…uh…I guess you really did miss her like you said, back at my house, huh?”

 

“Yeah.” Brigitte glanced down at the girl.

 

“I don’t get it.” Ghost shook her head.

 

“I get that.” Brigitte shrugged. “We’re…working it out as we go. I think.”

 

“It’s weird.” Her face scrunched up a little, as she contemplated this. “You know I can hear you guys right, some nights? The car isn’t that big.”

 

“Sorry about that.” Brigitte shrugged again, apologetically.

 

Ghost shrugged.

 

“I don’t get it, but I think I sorta understand it. After all the things you told me about her, even if your sister is partly violently insane,” Ghost glanced nervously towards the woods. “, what you’re doing almost makes a twisted kinda sense.”

 

“Twisted.” Brigitte snorted. “That sounds about right.”

 

“I was jealous, y’know? I thought we might have had a connection.” Ghost went on. “I wanted you back. I never had a sister, or a friend, nobody like you.”

 

“So you locked me in your cellar like a pet, and then gave us away to the cops?” Brigitte asked. “As for people like me, the fewer of us, the better.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Ghost said, quietly.

 

“I know.”

 

Neither said anything for a while. Brigitte was fine with that, this wasn’t a conversation she was enjoying any aspect of really.

 

“What are you going to do when we get to Toronto?” Ghost asked.

 

“Find the archives. Dig up what we can.” Brigitte replied, robotically.

 

In truth, she didn’t have much of a plan. A vague outline maybe. She wasn’t really sure what the goal of all this was yet, either. Some slim notion of finding out about Ginger’s dreams, the other Fitzgerald sisters, maybe something about where the lycanthropes had come from…

 

“Will you go home?”

 

Home.

 

Of course Brigitte had thought about it. How could she not have? She was only human…

 

…mostly. To an extent.

 

She saw a lot of problems with going home. Going back to Bailey Downs. But…but she couldn’t fully put the idea aside.

 

“I don’t know.” Brigitte replied, honestly.

 

“Does your sister?”

 

Brigitte hadn’t asked. She didn’t know how.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Okay kids, let’s get this show on the road!” Ginger appeared, jogging back to the car.

 

“What about me?” Ghost asked quickly, looking up at her. “Can I stay with you?”

 

Brigitte paused, opening the door to the driver’s seat. She gave Ghost a brief look.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

…

 

The roads were getting busier, and the snow thinner as they neared the city. More buildings, more roads. Highways, motorways, bridges, apartments, towers…

 

Civilisation, Brigitte mused, it had been a while.

 

“Nearly there.”

 

Ghost was asleep in the back. Ginger was looking uncomfortable. Brigitte wasn’t feeling too sure about things herself.

 

“Are we heading straight to the archives?” Ginger asked, suddenly.

 

“Is there some reason we shouldn’t?” Brigitte asked. “I don’t want to be recognised here, do you?”

 

“No, but…” Ginger was looking at her, closely.

 

Brigitte glanced back.

 

“…but…”

 

Ginger frowned, thinking something over.

 

“Haven’t you thought about it?” Ginger asked, as if willing her to understand something.

 

Brigitte had a feeling she knew what ‘it’ was.

 

“Do you…want to do it?” Brigitte asked, hesitantly.

 

“Maybe…I don’t know. It’s been over three years, B.” Ginger half-smiled, looking at herself, then Brigitte. “And we aren’t looking much like ourselves.”

 

“I think we’d have a lot to explain outside of just how fucked up we look, Ginge.” She replied.

 

“Does that mean…you’ve thought about it then?” Ginger pressed. “Going back?”

 

“I’ve thought about it.” Brigitte nodded. “I’ve been thinking about what to do with…her, too.” She nodded toward the back.

 

Ginger looked back, then back at her and shrugged.

 

“I suppose there are worse ideas.” She sighed. “Although mine were more interesting.”

 

Brigitte shot her a look.

 

“Joking. Joking.” Ginger assured her. “Are we doing it then? Going back? Bailey Downs?”

 

Brigitte stared ahead at the road for a minute, watching signs go by either way. Ginger’s hand pressed down on hers, on the wheel.

 

“I guess we are.” Brigitte switched lanes, turning off the highway, down the slope.

 

“How the hell are we gonna explain all this?” Ginger smiled weakly.

 

“Bullshitting Pam was your thing.” Brigitte grinned. “You’re going to have to come up with a work of art.”

 

“Thanks, B.” Ginger pouted.


	3. Bailey Downs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was only a matter of time before I dragged them back here, you all know it.

“We’ve been sitting here for fifteen minutes.”

 

“Shut up.” Ginger growled.

 

Brigitte drummed her fingers on the wheel, her teeth clenched together, her eyes fixed on the sign right ahead, by the road.

 

Bailey Downs.

 

“You two are seriously spooked over this, aren’t you?” Ghost pressed.

 

“Shut up.” Ginger repeated.

 

“Your mom some kinda dragon or something?”  Ghost smirked.

 

Ginger went to turn and snarl something, but Brigitte put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.

 

“Let’s just…let’s do this.” Brigitte looked back at the sign and started the car.

 

They rolled along, down quiet roads, identical streets, the dull, plastic monotony of isolated, crisp and clean suburbia. Row after row after row of houses and lawns. Mailboxes and drives.

 

Bailey Downs hadn’t changed a bit in three years. But then it hadn’t in the sixteen they’d lived there, either.

 

“It’s the same.” Ginger muttered, looking out the window as they passed house after house. “It’s…fuckin’ creepy.”

 

“I know what you mean.” Brigitte agreed.

 

“You lived here?” Ghost asked. “This doesn’t seem so bad.”

 

There were knots of kids out, some with parents, some in groups on their own, playing or walking in the snow.

 

They drove on for another few minutes in silence. Brigitte was trying to keep her mind off of…everything, Ginger seemed to be brooding about something and Ghost, Ghost was…

 

“Okay, you might have had a point. How the hell do you even remember which house was yours? They all look the same.” Ghost went on, peering out her window.

 

“Welcome to purgatory.” Ginger mumbled, resting her chin in on her hand.

 

“We lived close to the woods.” Brigitte explained, something like a map appearing in her mind. Like she couldn’t forget. “Near that playpark, where-” She stopped.

 

“Yeah.” Ginger nodded. “There.”

 

“Is that where-” Ghost started.

 

“Yes.” Ginger replied, in a tone that indicated the conversation was over.

 

Brigitte slowed as they came to the next corner, coming to a stop.

 

“What are you waiting for?” Ginger asked.

 

“Looking out for cops you idiot.” Brigitte replied, sharply. “I know the news has us last seen heading north, but I’m not taking any fucking chances.”

 

“You think they’ll still be watching home? After three years?” Ginger snorted. “Coming back here was the last thing I thought I’d be doing, B, how the fuck would they think it up?”

 

“Y’know, the police might be a little smarter than your average high school drop-out, just saying…” Ghost ventured.

 

“I’ve had it up to here with-” Ginger turned around with a glare, raising her fist.

 

“Enough already!” Brigitte yelled. “Fucking enough, seriously.” She glared at the both of them, then turned the corner, and pulled up at a house halfway down the curve.

 

Home. Or, it had been, once.

 

“Looks like nobody’s in.” Brigitte noted, inwardly relieved. Neither Henry or Pam’s car was outside.

 

They got out, taking a second to glance up and down the empty road. If anyone was watching, for the past three years, they must have had the most boring job in the world.

 

“Do you think they still keep a key under the mat round back?” Ginger asked, breezing past, down the side of the house.

 

“Henry was a creature of habit.” Brigitte shrugged, following her.

 

“Did you always call your parents by-” Ghost started.

 

“B called ‘em mom and dad sometimes, but she was totally soft, back then.”

 

“Screw you.” Brigitte muttered, then noticed Ginger turn with a wry smile on her face like she was about to say something else. “Stop. Right there, Ginge.”

 

“Love you, B.” She grinned, jogging around the corner.

 

“She is so weird.” Ghost said quietly, coming up beside her.

 

“I’m beginning to think it’s genetic.” Brigitte replied, as they wandered into the back garden.

 

It was still the same. Tidy, ordered, neat. Pam’s little touches could be seen everywhere. Clipped lawn, practically mathematically-organised beds of flowers and shrubs.

 

Her eye strayed to the ‘den’, as she and Ginger had thought of it. The shed, where they’d snuck off for a joint or a smoke so often, growing up. And tried to bury Trina. Not entirely successfully, since Pam had…

 

“Fuck me, they still do.” Ginger laughed, pulling her attention away from the garden to see her older sister holding a key.

 

Ginger opened the door and headed inside. Brigitte followed, pushing past her desire to linger outside.

 

The house was quiet. Still. It reminded her of how it had felt the night Ginger first turned, when she’d come back with Sam.

 

They walked through the quiet hallways. Brigitte wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but even Ginger seemed…subdued, almost. Quieter than usual. And she was staying close to Brigitte’s side.

 

“It’s all the fuckin’ same.” Ginger muttered, looking around quickly, as if uncomfortable staring at any one thing for too long.

 

“Not entirely.” Brigitte murmured, glancing at the portraits and photos lining the hall. “They cleaned up all the blood.”

 

“Nice spot, B.” Ginger quipped, sarcastically. “Might have missed they’d tidied up the mess I made that night.”

 

“You attacked your own home?” Ghost asked, sounding surprised.

 

“We brought her back here.” Brigitte explained, feeling sick. It was harder than she’d thought it’d be, coming back, seeing it all again, so close, so real. “We tried to cure her.”

 

“Didn’t work out so great.”

 

They stopped in the hall, by the old photo of them as kids. It seemed unreal now.

 

“She killed Sam.” Brigitte said, staring at it.

 

Ginger must have been eight, meaning she’d been...seven? She was so young. And she was smiling, really smiling. It made her want to cry.

 

“You nearly killed me.” Ginger shrugged. “Guess I deserved it though.”

 

“Is that you two?” Ghost peered closer at the photograph. “You were pretty, Brigitte. Even you.” She glanced at Ginger.

 

“Were?” Brigitte snorted.

 

“Even?” Ginger glared.

 

Ghost seemed to realise she was stood between them, and stepped backwards slowly.

 

“I’ll just…go away…somewhere else for a minute.”

 

“Good idea.” Ginger growled.

 

Brigitte found herself staring at the photo again. It was like looking at somebody else’s life. Two entirely different people. Even Ginger looked almost…content. She wasn’t looking at the camera, she was looking at Brigitte.

 

“When did you stop wearing your hair like that?” Ginger asked, raising her hand to the photo. She trailed a finger across her younger-self’s cheek. “Used to be able to see your face.”

 

“You didn’t like it.” Brigitte replied, honestly.

 

“Oh.” Ginger looked momentarily taken aback. “Well, let’s put that down as one of my many other poor choices.”

 

“I did.”

 

They stood side by side quietly, for a moment, lost in the past. Ghosts of two girls they barely remembered, looking back at them.

 

“You look happy. Were you?” Ginger asked, touching her arm.

 

Brigitte shrugged.

 

“I can’t remember.” She replied. “Maybe.”

 

Ginger’s hand suddenly gripped hers, and she turned to face her, frowning.

 

“God, I ruined you, B.”

 

Brigitte managed a half-smile, running her thumb over the back of Ginger’s hand slowly.

 

“Give me some credit, Ginger.” She grinned, wryly. “C’mon, let’s go, there’s nothing here for-”

 

They froze as they heard the sound of a key in the front door. The squeak of plastic as it swung open and footsteps scuffing on the doormat.

 

“Oh shit.” Ginger muttered.

 

Ghost reappeared, peering around the corner from the kitchen.

 

“Trouble?”

 

“Sort of.” Brigitte sighed, bracing herself.

 

Pamela appeared at the end of the hall, carrying numerous bags and trying to put her keys away. She paused, finally noticing the three of them standing together at the other end.

 

If the house had been silent before, Brigitte was pretty sure now she could have dropped a pin in the attic and heard it from their room in the basement.

 

Pam had a funny look on her face. Kind of a smile, strained, slightly.

 

“Girls. Girls?” She managed, looking back and forth between them. “You’re…back!” Pam laughed. A high, nervy laugh.

 

Brigitte took a hesitant step forward.

 

“…uh…hi…mom?” She ventured, hesitantly.

 

“Told you.” She heard Ginger whisper to Ghost.

 

“I’m…um…” Pam started, then she fainted.

 

“Nice work, B.” Ginger squeezed her hand. “You killed her.”

 

…

 

Brigitte sat by the sofa, with Pam, dabbing her forehead with a warm cloth.

 

“Sorry about that.” She said, quietly, doubting her mother could even hear her. “Wasn’t really how I thought it would go, coming home. But I wasn’t sure how I ever thought things would turn out. Maybe they could have gone worse?”

 

Pam moaned slightly. Brigitte winced.

 

“I’m not sure why we’re here. I guess I thought…I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Nothing. You were going to cover up a murder for us. I don’t know that we ever did anything to deserve that kind of motherly…anything, from you.”

 

Brigitte rolled her eyes, sitting back against the sofa.

 

“My girls.” Pamela mumbled from behind her, causing Brigitte to jump as a hand reached out and stroked her hair.

 

“Pam?” Brigitte shuffled around.

 

“Is she up?” Ginger poked her head into the living room.

 

“Yeah.” Brigitte replied, as Ginger wandered in, kneeling next to her.

 

“I am your mother.” Pamela sat up, rubbing her head. “What…how…why are you both…” She frowned, her hand going to her mouth.

 

“Don’t cry, please, this is weird enough.” Ginger smirked.

 

“Ginger-” Brigitte started, when Pamela threw her arms around the two of them, pulling them into a crushing embrace.

 

“My girls.” She sobbed, again. “I missed you so much.”

 

Brigitte stiffened, completely unprepared for the sudden display of physical affection, struggling to work out what to do with it. She settled for patting her mother’s back, awkwardly. Ginger made a face, over Pam’s shoulder, something between cringing and bewilderment.

 

“ _Help_?” She mouthed.

 

Brigitte didn’t respond, her own feelings conflicted as it was. Part of her remembered Pam had never really known what to do with them, as girls. She’d often seemed to be on another planet, or something. But part of her couldn’t let go of the fact that this was still her mother, who she hadn’t seen in three years, and who even after everything they’d done, had missed them, and was holding them.

 

“Missed you too.” She mumbled, into the woman’s shoulder, unable to completely shake the feeling she was a fucking hypocrite.

 

…

 

Later that afternoon, after everyone had taken some time to settle, Brigitte head downstairs, to the living room again. She’d taken advantage of a shower, a decent one, the first decent one she’d had that wasn’t some crappy motel hack-job since she’d left home.

 

And it felt _good_ , she admitted, running a hand through her damp hair. It felt smooth, sleek, she felt clean and new, and not like…some kind of filthy homeless loser.

 

Which she kind of was.

 

Felt good though, mostly. Aside from the itch, the niggling itch that told her a full moon was on the way. Or the slightly darker hairs on her hands and arms. Or her nails, already growing after she’d cut them back. Or the way her long, pointed ears poked out through her hair now.

 

She’d changed into a tracksuit pants and a grey sweater. Ghost was asleep in the spare room, which had left Ginger and Pamela together. A worrying thought. Especially since Ginger looked a lot freakier than she did. What would Pamela make of them? Would she believe any of it?

 

But then…their mother had been prepared to burn down their home and drive away with the pair of them. Maybe they could talk to her.

 

She stepped into the living room privately relieved Ginger hadn’t murdered Pamela, and that Pamela hadn’t reduced Ginger to a sulking, brooding wreck in the corner.

 

They looked up at her as she came in. Ginger gave her a smile, scooting over so she could sit beside her on the sofa. Pamela watched, brows knitted slightly and her hands clasped in front of her.

 

It dimly occurred to her that Henry…dad, wasn’t around still.

 

“So…” She clapped her hands together, slightly uneasy. “…my daughters are…werewolves?”

 

Brigitte opened her mouth, turning to Ginger.

 

“I had to tell her somethin’, B.” Ginger shrugged, defensively. “I mean, look at us! I’ve got fangs! You’ve got big ears! And my hair is grey!”

 

“And the other one upstairs…is the missing girl, from the clinic? Is she…?” Pamela began.

 

“No, she’s…normal. Sort of.” Brigitte replied, tentatively.

 

“Apart from being fucked in the head.” Ginger muttered. “And we totally didn’t kidnap her. I’ve been trying to get rid of her since Brigitte let her tag along.”

 

“We couldn’t just leave her in the middle of nowhere.” Brigitte argued. “There aren’t any cops around still, are there?”

 

“No. Not anymore. They didn’t think there was any chance of you coming back, after three years. They said they were looking up north.” Their mother sighed, sadly. “Werewolves.” Pamela nodded, mulling the idea over.

 

“Full moons, howling…er…desire to…eat living things…” Ginger counted off her fingers, ignoring their mothers worried expression.  “Not to mention, slowly transforming into a hellish, hairy murderbeast three nights every month.”

 

“Oh my.” Pamela managed.

 

“I gotta say, you’re taking this kinda well, Pam.” Ginger sat back, arms on the back of the sofa.

 

“Where’s Henry?” Brigitte asked, suddenly.

 

Pamela looked guilty for a moment. She swallowed, wringing her hands.

 

“We…I and your father, we split up not long after…you two disappeared.” She replied. “I don’t know if you remember really, you were so young…” Pamela trailed off, looking sad.

 

“…Pam?” Ginger prompted, impatiently.

 

“Mom?” Brigitte elbowed her.

 

“We were already going through…marriage counselling.” Pamela went on. “We were mostly staying together for you, and when you vanished…well.”

 

“Really? That sucks.” Ginger mused.

 

“I saw you both on the news though, when those photos of us got out.” Brigitte pressed.

 

She wasn’t sure why it bothered her so much, parents who she’d never really connected with, the image of a family that had never quite been a family, fragmenting in her mind. But it did bother her.

 

“We thought if you could see us both that maybe…you might…”

 

“We’d never planned to come back, really.” Ginger said, seemingly enjoying herself. “I told you what we’ve done, what _I’ve_ done. Pam, I’ve e _aten_ people.”

 

“You are still my little girls.” Pam replied, determinedly.

 

“We’re dangerous. We couldn’t.” Brigitte added. “After what happened with Sam, and Ginger, in our room that night…I had to go.”

 

“Sam…the boy...they…found in the basement.”

 

“My bad.” Ginger yawned, one of her arms sliding around Brigitte’s shoulder. “Well, kinda. I was a wolf-monster at the time.”

 

“Ginger.” Brigitte snapped.

 

“Sorry.” She winced.

 

Pamela was looking at the two of them, clearly concerned.

 

“I want you to tell me everything.” She leaned forward.

 

“That’s a long story.” Brigitte replied, hesitantly.

 

“Two of ‘em.” Ginger added.

 

“Then you’d better get started, girls.” Pamela clapped her hands together, expectantly.

 

…

 

Brigitte stared up at the skeletal frame of the basement ceiling, laying back on her old bed. Ginger was in the bathroom, finishing up.

 

Pamela hadn’t said much after they’d finished, only indicating their old room was there for them, before saying goodnight and heading upstairs.

 

Their room was the same. Almost exactly as they’d left it, all that time ago. Less blood and no corpses, but the same. Like something ripped out of her memory.

 

She was trying not to look at anything. Not the spot down the hall where Ginger had dragged Sam’s mauled body, then ripped his throat out while she tried to swallow mouthfuls of his blood. Not the spot where she’d been cornered, terrified, afraid, by Ginger as she prowled around the basement, chasing her down. Not the spot in the middle of the room where she’d drove the knife into Ginger’s body, and lay with her, alone, in the dark, listening to her breathing stop.

 

Brigitte remembered. Remembered it all. So clearly. So fucking clearly. So much it made her head spin, her skull ache.

 

She noticed her hands were shaking, and that she was gripping them together over her stomach. Brigitte rolled on to her side, reaching out for the packet of cigarettes and her lighter on the bedside table. It was hard with her fingers not cooperating, fumbling, but she managed to light one up, holding it to her lips and taking a slow drag.

 

“Fuck.” She hissed, curling up on her side, wrapping her arm around herself, willing it to pass.

 

Brigitte heard the bathroom door open and close, and Ginger’s footsteps as she shuffled lazily across the floor. The footsteps stopped, roughly where the foot of Ginger’s bed would have been.

 

“Are you smoking?” Ginger asked. She could practically hear her grinning. “Pam wouldn’t like that.”

 

Brigitte didn’t answer, only taking another drag.

 

“B, you okay?”

 

“Great.” She replied, hoarsely.

 

The events of the last…week? Months? Three fucking years? Whatever, it all felt like it was catching up with her, crashing over her like a wave.

 

“I’m so fucking tired Ginger.” She mumbled, quietly, stumping out the cigarette and rolling onto her other side to face her sister.

 

Ginger crossed her arms, looking worried. She’d changed into a long t-shirt and her hair was slightly darkened, hanging heavily over her shoulders where it was still wet.

 

“You’re only human, B.” Ginger said, then half-laughed a little to herself. “Well, you know what I mean anyway. I’ve got an idea.” She added, as she suddenly moved around and started pulling her bed across the floor, toward Brigitte.

 

“Ha ha.” Brigitte muttered, curling up again, her eyes lingering on Ginger’s bare legs. “What are you doing?”

 

“Something Pam used to tell us off about all the time.” Ginger chuckled.

 

She watched as Ginger moved around the other side and pushed her bed the rest of the way, until they were together.

 

“I think we’ve gone a bit further than what she was annoyed about, Ginge.” Brigitte sighed. “She thought we spent too much time together, that we were too close. Considering what we’ve done, maybe she was right?”

 

“You regret it?” Ginger asked, climbing onto her side of the bed and crawled over, until they were face to face.

 

“No.” Brigitte replied, meeting Ginger’s eyes. She leaned forward, kissing her on the lips.

 

Ginger’s hand was in her tracksuit pants, sliding around over her underwear, holding her ass.

 

“Maybe it was always gonna happen, then.” Ginger shrugged. “Never gave much of a fuck about anything except you, B. Even if I was kinda…shit at showing it.”

 

“You were.” Brigitte replied, but smiled a little anyway.

 

“Okay I was selfish. Really selfish. But you were my sister. Mine.” Ginger went on. “I wanted to look out for you, but now, you do all the looking out for both of us.”

 

“Someone has to.” Brigitte mumbled, touching Ginger’s cheek.

 

“What’s eatin’ you, B?” Ginger asked, suddenly. “Something’s wrong, something’s been gettin’ at you since we blew out of that dumb town, maybe longer. Maybe I just didn’t notice.”

 

Brigitte considered telling her about her…’episodes’. About the shakes, the headaches, the moments of panic…

 

…but she couldn’t. Not now. There was too much to think about. Too much to do.

 

“It’s nothing.” She lied.

 

“That’s not true is it.” Ginger frowned.

 

“No, but it’ll keep.” Brigitte closed her eyes, pressing closer to her sister. “Probably.”

 

She felt Ginger’s arm wrap around her back, pulling her close, and her breath warm the top of her head as she nuzzled her hair.

 

“Like old times, huh?” She heard Ginger murmur, before she fell asleep.


	4. Family Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lot of plot being thrown about in this chapter, and some other developments. And possibly the first signs of trouble brewing for the Fitzgerald sisters...
> 
> As always, please leave your thoughts, and thanks for reading!

Brigitte sat down at the dining room table, joining Ginger and Ghost who were already there, still in their sleepwear, leaning tiredly over their bowls of cereal. Apparently they were slumming it, today.

"Morning." Ghost yawned.

"Mm." Brigitte nodded, dropping the case she'd brought up on the table beside her. She saw Ginger's eyes flit over to it and frown slightly.

She wasn't unsympathetic. She'd head years of bad sleeping, never really feeling safe enough to relax, or let her ever-present fears slip away for a moment, and…last night, she had. Waking up with her sister's arms around her, spooned with her back to Ginger, had been more reassuring than she cared to admit.

"Feeling better?" Ginger asked around a mouthful of toast.

"Yeah." Brigitte nodded, helping herself to a few slices.

She chewed on one as she plucked out a syringe, cord and two vials of the monkshood extract from the case.

"Now?" Ginger asked, trying and failing to sound indifferent.

"Now." Brigitte mumbled, toast gripped between her teeth as she wrapped the cord around her upper arm and knotted it.

"Needles." Ghost cringed, looking uncomfortable. "Ick."

"One thing we can agree on." Ginger groaned.

"Would you give it a rest?" Brigitte scowled.

She tipped the vial onto the syringe, letting it fill slowly, then set the vial aside. Giving the needle a flick, she held it to her wrist and tried to ignore the uncomfortable looks from her sister and Ghost.

"What in heaven's name are you doing?"

Brigitte looked up sharply, the needle poised over her wrist, as Pamela stood in the doorway to the dining room, appalled.

"Shootin' up, what's it look like?" Ginger turned to their mother, beaming.

"I told you yesterday, we have to do this. It slows down the transformation." Brigitte explained, impatiently.

"I just thought-" Pamela sighed. "I'm a mother, when your girls are playing with needles at the dinner table, you tend to think certain things."

"I bet most moms don't have to worry about raising a brood of werewolves." Ghost sniggered.

Ginger glared, about to say something but Brigitte kicked her.

"Packs, dear." Pamela sat down at the head of the table. "Wolves come in packs."

"…er…right." Ghost replied, momentarily taken aback.

"Anyway, I'm sorry I thought you were…" Pamela looked at her, concerned. "…but after what you told me last night, I just worried that you were still doing-"

"I'm past it. I told you." Brigitte argued. "No more drugs. Just this."

Brigitte wasn't being totally honest, even with herself. She couldn't know what'd happen next week let alone in the next year. Maybe she'd be dead. Maybe she'd chuck it in and go feral. Maybe she and Ginger'd be caught by the cops and go out in a hail of bullets. Who knew?

"She won't even touch weed, Pam, and that barely counts as an illegal substance, right?" Ginger added, smiling helpfully as she finished off the last of her toast.

Brigitte kicked her again.

"Girls." Pamela said, sternly.

Brigitte shut them all out and tried to focus. She clenched her teeth and plunged the needle in, then squeezed the top. The monkshood flooded into her veins, cold and sharp.

"Fuck." She whispered, setting the syringe aside and undoing the cord, working her fingers and her wrist to get the circulation going.

"I wasn't sure if I really believed you, at first, even seeing you two. I mean, werewolves?" Pamela said, watching her intently. "But your stories…filled in a lot of gaps, in that last month before you both disappeared. For the first time since you left, things have started to make a kind of sense." She finished, sadly.

"Like my behaviour?" Ginger prompted.

"Well…no." Pamela admitted. "You were always quite…erratic, growing up. It was more to do with your sister, dear." She went on.

"What?" Brigitte asked, tuning back into the conversation.

"You were always Ginger's shadow, as children. Where she went, you were never far behind." Pamela smiled, sympathetically. "But in that last month, for the first time in your lives something seemed to have come between you, and you were starting to…stand on your own, Brigitte. A mother notices these things."

"That'll happen when one of you is mauled by a bloodthirsty monster, and turned into a selfish, sex-crazed, permanently angry, unholy terror." Ginger muttered. "You mean you didn't think there was anything strange about me a _t all_?" She added, in disbelief.

"I thought you were just going through puberty, honey." Pamela shrugged. "It takes us all in different ways.

"Thanks a lot." Ginger muttered, moodily.

Brigitte was gathering up another vial and the syringe, when her arm jolted suddenly. Pain racked through her and she grimaced, the monkshood doing its work.

"Does it hurt?" Pamela asked, frowning worriedly. "Monkshood is a poison."

"Every time." Brigitte replied. "But it works. It's just that it's a treatment, rather than a cure. Your arm, Ginge."

Ginger reluctantly held out her hand.

"This can't be good for you." Pamela shook her head, disapprovingly. "You look so thin, Brigitte. Pale."

"I've been taking it for over three years." Brigitte shrugged, tying the cord around Ginger's arm.

"Ginger looks…healthier." Pamela managed, hesitating as she regarded her fanged, clawed, somewhat lupine-looking daughter.

"I haven't been taking it for over three years." Ginger said, looking at their mother.

They shared a meaningful look. Brigitte softened her grip on Ginger's wrist, rubbing her skin gently with her fingers.

They'd told Pamela everything, last night. Everything.

Everything.

Brigitte shot Ginger a guilty look.

Well, _almost_ everything. She'd chosen not to spill the beans about the fact she and Ginger were taking _too close for sisters_ to other, mom-breaking depths.

"I know." Pamela replied, expression fixed.

Brigitte's gut twisted. She tried to fathom what was going through her mother's head. What could you think, what could you feel? What was it like, trying to look at your daughters and seeing killers?

"Ginger." Brigitte tried to get her attention as she wound and knotted the cord just short of her elbow. "Hold still."

She knew what Ginger would say. She said it often enough. Brigitte wasn't a killer. Brigitte hadn't killed anybody. But it didn't matter.

For three years, she'd felt like a killer. A murderer. For three years, she'd accepted that the blood of the only person she'd ever really cared about was on her hands. It didn't just go away. How could it?

And then there'd been others. Trina, Sam, Alice, Tyler, Jeremy, more, all dead because of her, in one way or another, even if she hadn't specifically done it herself.

"You all there?" Ginger peered at her, tilting her head slightly.

"Yeah." Brigitte blinked, picking up the syringe. "Yeah. I'm here."

…

"Keep her away from me, that's all. I'm not in the fuckin' mood." Ginger growled.

Brigitte massaged her forehead, irritably, trying to imagine something calm, relaxing, peaceful. Like a mausoleum.

Ginger wasn't dealing with the monkshood well, she never did. She and Ghost had been snapping at each other all morning, and now they were arguing over the TV.

"Ginger Ann Fitzgerald." They heard Pamela from the kitchen. "This is still my house and you are still my daughter."

Ginger shot Brigitte a look of utter disbelief, before slumping back into the sofa, curling up in a massive sulk. Nobody could be as noisily quiet as Ginger when she was sulking. Brigitte eyed the TV vaguely, but it made her head hurt more.

Brigitte wasn't entirely sure what their next step was, beyond getting to the National Archives in Toronto proper, but in their current monkshood-poisoned state they weren't going to be doing anything useful, so Ginger had persuaded her to call it an "off day".

The trouble was, it had been so long since she'd taken a day to just…switch off, she found she wasn't sure what to do with herself. Her thoughts kept going back to the time before, the weeks after Ginger was first attacked, to Sam…

She had no idea if he even had any family. She had no idea, after all this time, who'd…taken care of things. The body. Buried him. She wondered if Pamela would know.

"I'm going for a walk." She said, gritting her teeth against the pain as her entire body protested at being made to move at all.

"Mm." Ginger grunted, lost in her own world of agony.

Brigitte left the living room, heading for the kitchen. How did you even start a conversation like this?

Pamela was washing dishes with her back to her when she came in and stopped, awkwardly, in the doorway. Pamela seemed to notice she was there because she turned suddenly. She dried off her hands, leaning against the sink.

"Something wrong, dear?" She asked, in that probing 'mom' way. As if somehow all those years hadn't passed, with all the shit that went with them. "I doubt you're to ask me about boys, again. In retrospect, I should have probably suspected something when you asked me that, three years ago, but…"

"You put it down to puberty again, right?" Brigitte smiled wryly.

"I made my share of errors, with you two." Pamela sighed. "I feel responsible for much of this."

"Not your fault. Told you." Brigitte rebuked her, patiently. "Being attacked by werewolves can't be that common a thing for parents to worry about."

"Perhaps not." Her mother glanced away. "What was it you wanted?"

Brigitte crossed her arms, chewing her lip. Her bones were alive with a dull, constant ache that made her want to scratch through her skin to relieve, made it hard to think. She considered backing out and writing the whole thing off, putting it down as another horrible, horrible instance of trying to interact with her own mother.

"Is it Sam?" She asked, suddenly, in a display of unexpected intuition Brigitte found shocking.

"Yeah." She replied, after a moment.

"Was he a friend of yours? I didn't remember seeing him in your class…" Pamela asked, frowning in thought.

"Sort of. A friend I mean. And he wasn't from school exactly. Worked there, kind of. Plants. Gardening." Brigitte explained, haltingly.

"An older boy? Brigitte, you were only fifteen-" Pamela started, disapprovingly.

"We weren't-" Brigitte argued, then stopped. "Look, I just wanted to know if…was he…taken care of, you know?"

A look of understanding crossed her mom's face and she nodded slightly.

"There was a small service. Official. I don't believe he had any family."

"How do you know?" Brigitte asked, before she could stop herself.

"I went." Her mom replied, looking around the kitchen evasively. "I wanted to…understand. Why you were both gone, what happened, who he was to you two. I hoped someone who knew him might know…anything."

"Oh." Brigitte nodded slowly.

She looked across at the woman, her mom. They'd never really been close, never connected. She had hardly even thought of her as a mother, growing up. Ginger had taken up so much of her focus, her affection. Ginger had been the centre of everything. She'd filled Brigitte up and left no room for anything else, including her own parents.

"I'm sorry." She added, not sure what she was really apologising for.

"You should rest while you're here, I suppose you two won't be staying long." Pamela carried on.

"We can't." Brigitte reached up for her necklace out of habit and started thumbing it, her other arm wrapped around her.

"You still wear that old thing?" Her mother smiled, teasingly. "I saw Ginger did too."

"I guess." Brigitte shrugged.

Ginger had first found the creepy old necklaces up in the attic, among boxes and stacks of old family things, and she'd insisted they take for their own, one each. Dark, spooky, weird, just like they were, she'd laughed. And they'd just kept them, for years, and that was all there was to it.

Brigitte had to admit that they'd taken on a new significance since she'd seen the Ginger and Brigitte in her dream wearing them too. Coincidence? A product of her imagination? Real? The fact Ginger had seen the necklaces in her dreams had given her some pause for thought. She'd almost forgotten that they'd originally found them in their own home. Maybe…

"Mom, I don't think we ever asked, I don't suppose you know where these came from?" Brigitte asked, holding up the skull pendant. "Ginger found them when she was digging around in the attic, years ago."

"Oh," Pamela blinked, surprised. ", well, they belonged to my mother, your grandmother, and her sister, dear. She gave them to me when I was little, but…I was never too fond of them, to be honest." She explained, guiltily.

Brigitte didn't remember much about her grandmother. She'd died when she was really young, leaving her barely any memories of the woman. She didn't remember her great-aunt at all.

"I hardly remember her, where did she get them? Were they always hers?" Brigitte asked, curious now.

The last thing she'd expected was to actually learn anything by going back to Bailey Downs. It was a slim chance, but at this point she was willing to grab any thread.

"Why does it matter?" Pamela asked, chuckling slightly, but she must have seen something in Brigitte's expression because she sighed, nodding to herself and appeared to give it some thought. "I think my mother told me once, that she had them passed down to her and her sister by her mother, she was named Brigitte too, by the way, she was your namesake…or was it her grandmother…did she have a sister?" Her mother rambled, half to herself.

"There a lot of women in our family?" Brigitte asked, sarcastically. "Named Brigitte?"

"You know, I'm sure we had an old...family tree or something, tucked away somewhere." Pamela tapped her chin, thoughtfully.

"Seriously?"

That thin thread was shaping into a lead, in Brigitte's mind. It was almost enough to make her forget the monkshood currently tearing up her insides.

"Yes, I think so. I'll have a look if you like?"

"No, I'll-" She turned to hurry down the hall when a hand latched onto her shoulder. Not hard, but firmly enough to stop her.

"Brigitte Fitzgerald, you may have been on your own and looked out for yourself for a long time, but I am still your mother and I watched you inject yourself with what should have been a lethal dose of poison." She paused. "Whatever happened to you has changed you, but you're my daughter, and even I can see you're in pain. I will find it."

"But-"

"But nothing. Go sit down, or go for a walk, if you can't do that." Pamela ordered.

"But-" Brigitte tried again, feeling the strangest sense of deja-vu, as Pamela pushed her out of the kitchen.

"No buts." Pamela breezed past and started up the hall. "Relax, doctor's orders." And with that she disappeared upstairs, leaving Brigitte lost and bewildered in the hall.

She hadn't been talked to like that for years. It was a jarring experience.

Brigitte took a few steps back and forth, at a loose end. She fumbled for her cigarettes for a minute, and decided against it.

She finally took a seat at the foot of the stairs, and fiddled with the pendant again, distractedly, as she thought.

What if they were literally the same pendants? Two hundred years or so old, passed down through their family all the way to here, where she and Ginger happened on them? Changing hands, passing down the Fitzgerald line. Brigitte knew Henry had taken her mother's family name, but she'd never thought anything of it before, she hadn't cared.

It was getting harder not to take Ginger's dreams seriously…literal even, maybe. Too many things _were_ adding up.

And if they were real…didn't that mean the other Fitzgerald sisters were real? And if they were real…what had Ginger said? They were both infected and stranded in the wilderness, after the fort was destroyed?

But the Fitzgeralds were still around. She was here. Ginger was here. Her mother, Pamela was here. Her mother, and her mother's mother, going all the way back…

It was possible they'd had other relatives around at the time, and that the old Ginger and Brigitte had just died in the middle of nowhere, or gone mad, or turned feral, never to be seen again, but…

"Didn't get far then?"

Brigitte jumped, turning to see Ginger leaning on the banister, beside her.

"What?" She blurted, trying to catch up.

"Your walk." Ginger went on. "Sounded like you and Pam were talkin', mostly."

"We might not have to go to the archives." Brigitte said, getting up. "Want to go for that walk with me? There's a lot to explain."

"I'm not really feelin' up to a walk, to be-" Ginger started, holding her stomach with a grimace.

"Wasn't really a suggestion." Brigitte tossed Ginger her jacket, as she tugged on her own. "Come on."

…

They walked without any goal in mind, down still-familiar roads and lanes, past old haunts and hangouts, by their old school, closed and empty for the winter, past Sam's old greenhouse, boarded and abandoned, all the while, Brigitte tried to explain and make sense of what she'd learned talking to Pamela. Then they came to the playpark.

It was empty. Too cold out now, apparently, not that she or Ginger could feel it anymore.

Ginger jogged ahead, heading to the swings and falling into one of the seats. Brigitte dropped into one beside her.

"You think these might be the real deal, then?" Ginger asked, plucking out her own pendant.

"That or its one hell of a coincidence." Brigitte pushed back with her feet, slowly swinging back and forth. "But that wasn't really my point, Ginger. I mean, think about this."

"What?" Ginger asked.

"If these are the same pendants they had over two hundred years ago, if they are our…ancestors or something, then how are _we_ here?" Brigitte pressed.

"How do you mean?" Her sister asked, frowning.

Brigitte shook her head, trying to get her to understand.

"The last and only time you had sex, you turned Jason McCardy into a fucking werewolf, Ginger." Brigitte explained. "You told me in your dream you saw Brigitte infect herself with Ginger's blood because she was dying from the cold."

"Oh." Ginger muttered, something like realisation crossing her face.

"And, from those notes of yours, they claimed their parents were dead or something. Maybe they lied, but if it didn't, and they were the only members of the Fitzgerald family left at the time…" Brigitte prompted.

"You think..."

"Maybe one of them, maybe even both of them, found some kind of…cure." Brigitte said, still pushing herself on the swing, as her mind worked, absent-mindedly. "Mo-…Pamela said her grandmother…or her great grandmother was called Brigitte, apparently my namesake, but what if she was named after another Brigitte in the family?"

"Fuck, B."

"It's a lot of 'ifs' and 'maybes'." Brigitte admitted. "But…it's not impossible. We might have a chance, Ginge." She turned to her sister, trying hard to quash the beginnings of hope she felt stirring in her gut.

Hoping for things had never turned out too well in the past.

They fell into a comfortable silence, for some time. Brigitte swaying back and forth still and Ginger fiddling with the pendant. They watched cars go by across the small green around the park, and the street lights slowly come on as the sky darkened and the sun went down, in the early afternoon.

The monkshood had passed, at least. The pain that came with it fading away, leaving her oddly numb. Ginger seemed to have settled, too. They'd already started looking a little more like themselves. Ginger's hair had started to return to its normal colour, and her fangs had shrunk away. Idly, she checked her own teeth and was relieved to find them normal too.

"Have you thought about what you'd wanna do after all this? If we find something, whatever we find? Cure or damnation or absolutely fuck all or whatever?" Ginger asked, suddenly.

Brigitte turned to her sister, slowly.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "There aren't many places we could go, with our faces stuck all over newspapers like they are."

"If we don't find anything, even if we do, maybe, it's not like we can just go back to how things were. We can't just find a place, get a job and hit the daily grind." Ginger kicked off on her own seat, mirroring Brigitte's motion.

"You sound like you've thought about this." Brigitte said, a touch surprised.

Ginger generally didn't think ahead more than five minutes, in her experience. She had always been pretty firmly rooted in 'the moment'.

"We could go away. Just us. Nobody else. Somewhere out there, away from everybody, where we can't hurt anybody and nobody can hurt us." Ginger said, seriously. "Make something for ourselves, fuck the rest of the world."

"You mean like…out in the wilderness? Like, a cabin out in the woods?" Brigitte asked, dubiously.

"Hey, I spent my three years livin' rough in the wild, staying away from towns and people. I picked up some pretty useful fuckin' skills. I learnt how to survive, in my own way, like you did." Ginger retorted. "I could teach you to hunt, trap, we could build ourselves something. We'd never have to worry about needing anyone else again. Just you and me."

"Together forever, huh?" Brigitte mused.

"If you'll still have me." Ginger replied, holding her gaze, her hand reaching out toward her.

Brigitte grasped her sister's hand, entwining their fingers.

"You really have thought about this." Brigitte murmured.

"I don't think I could lose you again, B." Ginger laughed, nervily. "It nearly pushed me over the edge, last time."

"Yeah," Brigitte nodded, understanding. ", I know what you mean."

It wasn't as if she'd fared much better without Ginger, all that time. Her thoughts turned instinctively back to the night she'd killed…thought she'd killed her sister. She felt the beginnings of the trembling, getting to her hands. And the ache in her skull.

Brigitte let go of her sister's hand, pulling out her cigarettes and lighting one up in an attempt to cover it up, hoping Ginger wouldn't notice. Ginger was looking at her with a light frown, but didn't say anything.

The only sound for a time, was the creaking of the swings in the evening breeze that picked up, as they sat side by side, unmoving.

"We should head back." Brigitte said, getting up. "Pamela might have found something by now."

"Yeah. I suppose." Ginger got up next to her. She seemed about to say something when she stopped, abruptly, and stared past her, toward the woods.

Brigitte was about to ask what was wrong, when she felt something, too. Like the hairs on the back of her neck all standing on end at once. She turned sharply in the other direction, toward the road.

"Did you…" She started.

"…feel something then?" Ginger finished.

"Like…something watching?" Brigitte said, as they both turned back to face each other.

Ginger looked uncharacteristically unnerved.

"Yeah, it's…weird." She nodded. "Do you think…?" Ginger trailed off, looking around the park, clearly on edge.

To Brigitte, it was looking a little too much like it had the night Ginger was attacked. Her instincts were saying 'go', and she had started to trust them, lately.

Brigitte frowned. The last time she'd felt like this Ghost had been watching them, taking photos in an attempt to blackmail her. She wasn't about to entirely write it off as 'nothing'.

"Let's just go." Brigitte took her hand, flicking her cigarette across the tarmac.

"Good idea." Ginger agreed, and they turned in the direction of home.


	5. Ginger's Day Off

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today we get a window into Ginger's point of view, something we only saw once before in Endurance, during Reunion. Will we see into Ginger's mind again at some point later?
> 
> Spoilers.

It turned out their family tree wasn’t exactly just one neat, concise document. Nor was it entirely a tree. It turned out it was enough pieces of paper to possibly have once _been_ a tree, though.

 

“Oh my god.” Brigitte muttered to herself, poring over the confused, disorganised stack of papers she’d coated the entire dining room table with.

 

“Are you alright, B?” Ginger leaned on the other side of the table, looking at her with a mixture of concern and sympathy.

 

“What the fuck have I gotten myself into?” She half-whined, staring at the mess in growing despair.

 

That’s all there, I think, dear.” Pamela came into the dining room, looking pleased. “Your little friend helped me find it all.”

 

“No problem, Mrs Fitzgerald.” Ghost beamed, following behind her.

 

Brigitte’s eyes flitted over to her one-time ‘friend’ from rehab, wondering if she’d missed something or whether the girl and Pamela were actually…getting on. Ghost looked back, the picture of innocence.

 

Ginger shot the girl a sour glare. Brigitte noticed Pamela was giving her an expectant, hopeful look.

 

“…uh…yeah.” Brigitte tried to force a smile. “Thanks, mom. This is…great.” It felt more like a grimace, and Ginger was struggling not to laugh.

 

“You’re welcome, if there’s anything else you let me know.” Pamela smiled, leaving. “Night, girls.”

 

They all chorused ‘night’, in varying tones.

 

“You can stop now, Brigitte. She’s gone.” Ginger grinned. “You’re getting better, though, it looked less painful this time.”

 

“Fuck off.” Brigitte groaned, digging her fingers through her hair and resting her head in her hands.

 

“That was a smile?” Ghost snorted.

 

“One only a Pam could love.” Ginger chuckled. “You need any help?” Her sister turned back to her, trying to catch her eyes through her tangled fringe.

 

“Yes.” Brigitte sighed, looking over the table again, resignedly. “Go away.”

 

Ginger pouted, looking a little put out.

 

“Look, this is going to take…time.” Brigitte glanced up, trying not to snap. “We’re looking at another day here just to sort through this. It’ll be quicker if you all just…leave me to it.”

 

She saw Ginger look toward the back window. Brigitte followed her gaze. It was dark out now. And she was tired, after enduring the monkshood earlier.

 

“You could start tomorrow, right?” Ginger suggested, hopefully. “Come to bed?”

 

Brigitte looked over the threatening assortment of papers again.

 

“Fine.” She conceded, getting up from the table and letting Ginger gleefully hook her arm and tug her along.

 

“Gross.” Ghost called, from behind them. “Your mom is upstairs, have you no shame?”

 

“Who asked you?” Ginger cut back. “And no. Not after waking up after a full moon and still feeling the urge to…go…against a tree.”

 

“I don’t want to hear this.” Brigitte muttered, rubbing her eyes. Suddenly, sleep was sounding even better.

 

“Gross!” Ghost made a retching noise.

 

“Shut up!” Ginger retorted.

 

Brigitte closed her eyes, and started to count.

 

…

 

Ginger snorted, jolting awake and swallowed wrong, devolving into a fit of coughs. She fumbled around for Brigitte, still half asleep, rolling onto her side to find her and had a brief second to realise she wasn’t there. And nor was her bed.

 

“Hyyrrfffuu-!” She yelped, falling face first to the floor, tangled in bedsheets.

 

“Morning.” She heard Brigitte murmur, from somewhere above.

 

“Mrrnnggh.” She groaned, into the carpet.

 

“Moved my bed back earlier this morning. Sorry. Forgot to say.” Brigitte went on, not sounding _very_ sorry, to Ginger’s ears.

 

Ginger rolled onto her side, propping her head on her hand and looking up. Brigitte was laying on her front atop her bed, looking completely absorbed in whatever she was reading. Occasionally she’d pause to write something down in a notebook.

 

“Did you even stop for breakfast?” Ginger asked, rubbing her bleary eyes.

 

Brigitte reached over her head, to the bedside table and picked up a plate of toast, which she lowered down to the floor without a word.

 

Ginger eyed it warily, then frowned lightly back up at Brigitte, who had already gone back to forgetting she existed. She was like that, sometimes, when she was involved in something. Even as kids, Ginger would have to double her efforts to keep her sister’s attention…

 

…and she’d been quite a needy little bitch, back then. She always wanted Brigitte’s attention.

 

Ginger nibbled at a slice of toast, watching her sister, engrossed in whatever all that shit Pam had found was about. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, technically this whole ‘thing’ they were doing was her idea, they’d been her dreams, after all. Ginger just…didn’t have the focus Brigitte did. Except for when it came to maybe Brigitte herself, then Ginger could focus pretty much indefinitely.

 

She was focusing pretty intently on her sister now, as she munched through the toast, not bothering to get off the floor. Brigitte’s brow was furrowed slightly, as she read, her eyes would flick back and forth occasionally, her dark hair hung over her shoulders like a ragged curtain, clashing with her almost icy, pale skin beneath.

 

Brigitte had always had a lighter complexion, as far as she could remember, but she’d not exactly looked…permanently unwell. Frail, or fragile. She tried to imagine herself taking the monkshood for three years, alone, knowing what it was and what it was doing to her body, and couldn’t.

 

…although that was pretty much her future now, near as Ginger could tell. But at least she wasn’t alone.

 

Her eyes moved from Brigitte’s face down to her shoulder, trailing down the light curve of her back, stopping at her waist. Her grey sleeveless top had ridden up, exposing bare, almost porcelain skin just over her hips. Her loose tracksuit bottoms had slipped down a bit and she could see her underwear protruding over the top and then suddenly her imagination was going entirely different places before she could stop it.

 

Ginger brushed crumbs off her fingers on the carpet and slowly, carefully, pulled herself up, leaning on the side of Brigitte’s bed.

 

Brigitte had tried to broach the topic of their…well…relationship, whatever it was, a few times, but Ginger didn’t really know what to say about it. She loved Brigitte, she wanted Brigitte. In one way or another, she always had. She barely even considered it as much of a leap as she felt she possibly should have. Their bond had always been strong, they’d always been close. Unusually so, for sisters, definitely.

 

Ginger extremely carefully slipped her fingers under the waist of Brigitte’s tracksuit bottoms, and tentatively started sliding them down further.

 

Hell, they’d spent three years apart. Brigitte thinking she was dead, Ginger realising she couldn’t live without her. It had been a little surprising to find Brigitte was thinking about her in a blatantly sexual way, at first, she’d even masturbated thinking about her. Bit of a head-trip, but…so what?

 

It had clearly bothered Brigitte herself more than it bothered her. It made her realise that her feelings about her younger sister might just always have been a…little screwy. Odd. Not quite ‘the norm’.

 

Brigitte shifted slightly, folding one leg over the other, but continued scribbling away, seemingly oblivious to Ginger’s actions.

 

Ginger thought maybe Brigitte was the same, but her little sister was a thinker. And all that thinking probably made it harder for her to just accept what they wanted out of each other. Like it was still somehow wrong for them to want that kind of connection, or something.

 

Who fucking cared? Who else warranted a say? If she wanted to fuck her sister, after she’d been infected by a werewolf, regularly transformed into a flesh-eating carnivore, and actually fucking eaten people, then who the hell was going to say ‘sorry, that’s just one step too far’?

 

And Brigitte wanted her too, so it was hardly even a problem!

 

Ginger’s eyes latched onto the now exposed curve of Brigitte’s hips, hungrily. As delicately as possible, grinning, she hooked under fingers into the waistband of her sister’s black knickers and started to slide them down too.

 

“Cut it out.” Brigitte said, suddenly, without turning around, causing Ginger to jump and let go.

 

“I’m bored, B.” Ginger whined, shuffling further up the bed, toward Brigitte.

 

“This’ll take me longer the more you keep bugging me.” Brigitte finally looked up from her work, although she looked a _tiny bit_ annoyed.

 

“Bugging?” Ginger pouted, but Brigitte was already back to work.

 

Ginger scowled. She was going to have to get creative. The thing was, Brigitte was just less outwardly confident than she was, she needed prodding, sometimes.

 

“Brigitte…” Ginger started, softly, grabbing the hem of her long t-shirt.

 

“What is it?” Brigitte turned sharply, glaring at her.

 

Ginger lifted up her top, tilting her head slightly and grinning. Brigitte’s eyes widened, noticeably.

 

She wasn’t wearing a bra.

 

“Well?” Ginger beamed.

 

…

 

The bedroom door slammed shut in her face. Ginger blinked, momentarily stunned.

 

“Leave me alone.” Brigitte growled, from the other side. “Find someone else to pester.”

 

“Pester?” Ginger whined. “Brigitte?” She tried the door, but Brigitte had locked it.

 

“I’m not in!” Brigitte yelled, from further away.

 

“Brigitte! C’mooon!” Ginger moaned, then sighed, looking down, in a funk.

 

And her feet were cold. They weren’t supposed to feel the cold anymore, but the monkshood screwed with everything. And she wasn’t wearing very much. And now she had cold feet.

 

“Can I at least get some clothes?” She knocked on the door. “Brigitte?”

 

Ginger heard footsteps behind her and turned to see Pamela with a basket of washing, heading toward the machine in the basement. She gave her a brief glance, seemingly amused at the situation. Her annoyance at that was displaced by her surprise at seeing Ghost following behind her.

 

“Trouble, dear?” Pamela called, down the hall.

 

“No.” Ginger retorted, curtly.

 

“You always did never know when to stop pushing, with your sister.” The woman chuckled to herself.

 

“Aren’t you cold?” Ghost asked, innocently.

 

As innocent as a snake, Ginger thought.

 

“Get lost, you little troll.” She cut back.

 

“Ginger Ann!” Pamela scolded her.

 

“Don’t call me that!” Ginger yelled back.

 

“It’s okay, Mrs Fitzgerald. I’m used to Ginger’s moods.” Ghost chimed in.

 

“C’mere and say that.” She growled.

 

“Girls, that is quite-” Pamela started.

 

The bedroom door scraped open behind her. They all stopped. Ginger turned, quickly.

 

“Brigitte, they’re driving me nuts, you-” She managed, before catching a pile of clothes in her face with a _whump._

 

She pulled them down, involuntarily recoiling when she saw Brigitte’s withering, unflinching glare. Brigitte’s scathing gaze passed over all of them, without saying anything, then she stepped back into their bedroom and shut the door, the lock clicking into place again.

 

“I think Brigitte would like some ‘alone time’, now.” Pamela suggested, forcibly, steering Ghost upstairs with her. “The laundry will wait.”

 

“You’re not kiddin’…” Ginger muttered, struggling awkwardly into the pair of jeans in the cramped hallway, and then trying to change tops and hook on a bra as fast as possible to avoid the cold.

 

She eyed Ghost suspiciously, as she followed Pamela back upstairs, wondering just what the conniving midget was up to now. Getting on with Pam was dubious enough on its own, but the vindictive brat doing it only made Ginger trust her even less.

 

And she didn’t trust Ghost at all to begin with.

 

 _Okay then_ , Ginger thought, hopping off-balance down the hall as she tried to pull her socks on, that was the plan. She’d find out what Ghost was up to, and then she’d tell Brigitte. And _then_ she could kick her in the head. Or kick her out.

 

Either worked.

 

…

 

Realistically, Ginger felt she should have known better. She’d gotten bored of pretending not to watch Ghost and Pamela play happy families in about half an hour.

 

“So, do you have a real name, dear?” Pamela asked, from behind her in the dining room, where she was doing some…thing moms did. With some stuff. Cleaning, maybe.

 

“Yeah.” Ghost nodded. “Of course. I just…didn’t get on with my family.”

 

“Imagine that.” Ginger snorted, from the living room. “I mean, Brigitte told me you only set your grandmother on fire. I can’t imagine why she’d be annoyed.”

 

“It was an accident.” Ghost retorted, defensively.

 

“Yeah.” Ginger scoffed. “And when I turn, I accidentally start hunting down house pets.”

 

“No, she was smoking, and-”

 

“Liar.” Ginger half-turned, leaning on the back of the sofa.

 

“What about your parents?” Pamela asked, shooting Ginger a warning glance.

 

“Oh, they never found the bodies.” Ginger explained, casually. “Personally, I think the crazy freak probably just chopped them up and fed them to that dog of yours, what was its name? Rowdy?”

 

“Rocky.” Ghost glowered at her.

 

“Ginger, that is enough.” Pam insisted.

 

“Yeah…I guess that was what the collar said, at the rehab clinic.” Ginger mused, ignoring her. “It was kinda hard to read, I was in full ‘fangs and fur’ mode at the time, y’know, so it’s not like I had any say or control or…”

 

“ _You_ killed Rocky?” Ghost stared, gripping the table.

 

Ginger smiled, innocently.

 

“Well, it wasn’t _my_ fault, really.” She argued, mock-hurt.

 

She’d been trying to provoke a reaction out of the lying brat for the two weeks they’d been forced together by their mutual need to stay with Brigitte.

 

“I said that is quite enough!” Pam snapped.

 

“You think so?” Ginger argued back. “Why don’t you ask her about the time she tried to lock Brigitte up in her basement so she could have a werewolf as a pet?”

 

“She was turning!” Ghost cried. “I couldn’t stop it! And I didn’t want her to leave me!”

 

“There’s a shocker.” Ginger rolled her eyes.

 

Ghost looked like she was going to argue back, but Pam put a hand on her shoulder and steered her to the kitchen.

 

“I’ll be along shortly, dear.” She murmured, then turned back to Ginger, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

 

“What? You’re gonna lecture me now? That kid is a fucking piece of-”

 

“I know precisely what she is, and what she’s done, Ginger.” Pamela pulled up a chair from the dining table and sat a small distance from the sofa.

 

“…y’what?” Ginger blinked, momentarily thrown off.

 

“Her parents left her with her grandmother, Barbara, when she was little.” Pam explained, patiently. “Barbara, from what I gather, wasn’t particularly interested in raising a child.”

 

“So she tried to burn her alive? That sounds fuckin’ reasonable.” Ginger scoffed.

 

“I thought, given your own situation, you’d have been a little more understanding of those who sometimes feel compelled to do unpleasant and horrible things in order to survive.” Pamela clasped her hands in front of her, leaning forward.

 

“I didn’t _want_ to do any of the shit I’ve done!” Ginger spat, although the words weren’t _quite_ as true as she felt they should be. “She’s just whacked, she tried to kill her grandmother, she manipulated Brigitte into using me to kill a guy who worked at the clinic, _and_ she was going to lock up Brigitte, my sister, _your_ daughter, in her cellar like a fuckin’ caged animal!”

 

Ginger paused, catching her breath. She actually felt a little better having got that off her chest. Being stuck around the girl all this time had let it all build up and there’d been nothing that she could do about it.

 

“All better?” Pam asked.

 

“Yeah, actually.” Ginger shrugged, a touch lightheaded. “I guess I’ve been feelin’ a bit cooped up for a while. When I was looking for Brigitte, I spent most of those years outside, living rough. Away from people and towns and shit. Guess I kinda miss it.”

 

“Must you harass that poor girl quite so much?”

 

“Yeah.” Ginger replied, bluntly. “And poor nothing, she’s dangerous! She’s evil! Clever! Downright villainous!” She went on, failing to see why Pamela couldn’t quite seem to grasp what was, to her, a simple fact.

 

“You’re saying she’s a dark, lost, deadly and troubled young lady, who could use a tempering influence?” Pamela suggested, watching her closely. “Somebody like Brigitte was for you?”

 

“I-” Ginger started to argue, and stopped. “You’re not listening, she tried to kill an old woman!”

 

“Some might call you and Brigitte monsters, considering what you’ve told me.” Pamela smiled sadly. “But you’re my little girls, and if I am a mother to monsters, what’s one more?”

 

“Brigitte isn’t like me. Or Ghost.” Ginger insisted, feeling her anger slowly diminish.

 

It occurred to her this might have been the longest she’d ever spent talking to Pam in her life. She couldn’t really remember.

 

Pamela chuckled, shaking her head slightly.

 

“She’d do anything for you, and I think you know that, Ginger.” She sat back, crossing her legs. “Brigitte was always there, everywhere you went. I remember a little more than you, you forget.”

 

Ginger frowned, conceding begrudgingly with a mumble.

 

“I know you will both be leaving again soon, but wherever you’re going, whatever you’re going to do, you can’t take that girl with you, and you know that too, don’t you?” Pamela asked.

 

“I didn’t want her along anyway.” She muttered.

 

“Do you suppose that’s why Brigitte brought her along?”

 

The thought had occurred to her, once or twice.

 

“Would it bother you if I asked her to stay with me?”

 

“No.” Ginger answered quickly, then winced. “Maybe. I don’t care. It’s your house.”

 

Pamela smiled a little, but Ginger didn’t know what at. She stared defiantly back.

 

“You’re not worried then?”

 

“Of course I’m fuckin’ worried, you’re my mo-” Ginger blurted, her brain frantically trying to curb her tongue before she said something she’d really regret. “…nothing. Forget it.” She turned around, back against the sofa again.

 

Pamela chuckled behind her.

 

“It’s okay dear, you don’t have to say it.” Ginger heard her get up and head back toward the kitchen.

 

“I wasn’t going to say anything.” Ginger insisted, without turning around.

 

“I know, dear.” Pamela called back.

 

“Stop agreeing with me!” She turned around again, scowling.

 

“Whatever you say, dear.” Pamela left her a parting wave, then disappeared into the kitchen.

 

Ginger stared after her for a moment, considered her options, and came to a decision.

 

She was going for a walk.

 

…

 

Ginger meandered aimlessly around the winding streets and lanes of Bailey Downs. The light covering of snow crunching softly underfoot. Kids raced back and forth on the empty roads, thrown-together hockey games on the flat surfaces, too icy for driving after the cold nights.

 

She tried not to think about what Pam had said, but the thoughts wouldn’t completely leave her. Ghost living in her ho-…what _had_ been her home. Pam was going to ask her to stay.

 

She stuffed her hands in her pockets and tramped on, grinding her teeth irritably and trying to calm down. She couldn’t figure what she was really angry about. Pam being concerned about Ghost, more than she seemed to about her own daughters?

 

That was hardly even fair, really. Petty as she was, she recognised that. Ginger had made a point of rebuking all of Pam’s attempts to actually be a mother when growing up, and she’d dragged Brigitte into her way of thinking.

 

Would it be so bad? Really? Henry was gone, and Pam was alone. And whatever she thought of the crazy, demented little shit, Ghost was alone, with nothing. Brigitte could see that. Despite all Ghost had done to her, Brigitte could still see that.

 

Ginger noticed she was coming up on the green. A big, flat, empty field in the middle of Bailey Downs used by the school for sports and the surrounding houses for dogs to shit in. It was pretty packed today with kids and families out screwing around in the snow. She stepped out onto it, pausing by a pylon at the edge.

 

An old, weathered poster was still stuck to it. It was one of the ‘Missing’ posters, for Trina Sinclair. She grimaced, slightly, then hurried past.

 

Trina had been an accident. She’d been angry, and jealous, and angry…and…angry. The curse had been getting worse, she’d pushed Brigitte away and Brigitte had stopped trying to push back. She was hanging around with Sam, and not with her. It wasn’t that she was the most rational thinker at the best of times, but she’d been in a pretty bad way back then, even for her.

 

She’d only meant to get Trina to leave Brigitte alone. To stop yelling at her, but she lost control.

 

And not long after that, Ginger lost control of everything else.

 

Ginger groaned in frustration, trying to clear her head. She had to think about something else. She stopped walking, watching a couple of kids run and stumble around with their dog, barking and chasing them.

 

She’d come to appreciate the brief window after taking the monkshood where she could look at a dog and not feel the urge to stalk it and kill it. It was the little things.

 

Her thoughts moved on to what she and Brigitte were doing. Trying to dig up the past. It still seemed a little silly, that this had all started because she’d been having weird dreams. But they’d always felt like _more_ than that, to her. And Brigitte had had one, as well. One, at least, that she’d told her about.

 

Maybe she could help Brigitte, she mused, as she lazily strolled along, almost on auto-pilot. Maybe she could try and sort through what she remembered, come up with a clearer version of the story in her dreams. That time she’d written down all that shit for Brigitte at the library, she hadn’t exactly been thinking it through.

 

Ginger stopped, feet placed close together and looked down. She scuffed her boots in the snow, idly. Where to start? The dreams weren’t that clear, and they didn’t seem to happen in order. And sometimes they were just bits and pieces. Flashes, images, confusing.

 

She stifled an irritated moan. How the hell did Brigitte do this sort of thing… _all the time_ too? Brigitte always seemed so…in control, sort of?

 

Most of the time anyway, except when she wasn’t. Brigitte out of control wasn’t a pretty picture. Brigitte out of control was something else entirely.

 

That was all beside the point though, she’d gotten sidetracked again. Even if there were worse things to be sidetracked by than her sister, she’d decided what she wanted to do and she was going to do it.

 

Ginger closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She tried to drown out her surroundings and relax, rolling back and forth on the balls of her feet.

 

She thought back, humming to herself lightly. Think back, think back. What came first? What happened first?

 

The sound of children laughing and dogs barking failed away. All she could hear was the icy wind, numbing her ears and finger tips. Cold. Feeling the cold was another rarity. Cold.

 

_Cold. Cold wind, in the trees. The sound of a tired, lame horse, trotting weakly over stone, dirt, icy streams. Two riders. Cold, exhausted, hungry, worn. Breathing heavily, icy breath, clinging to one another for warmth, for comfort._

_Two sisters. One with black hair, one with red. Ginger and Brigitte. Like herself, but not._

 

_“I’m so cold.” Brigitte whispered, shakily._

_“Me too.” Ginger replied, peering around worriedly._

_Miles from anywhere. Miles from miles from anywhere. No food. No shelter. Getting colder…_

_Brigitte tightened her hold around her waist, leaning against her shoulder from behind._

_“Ginger,” Brigitte went on, breathless, chattering. “, I think we’ve lost our way.”_

_Ginger turned, looking at her sister, concerned. Brigitte wasn’t doing well. She wouldn’t complain, but Ginger could tell. She let go of the reins with one hand, reaching, fumbling for one of Brigitte’s hands at her waist._

_Brigitte clasped it quickly, and Ginger winced. Her skin was icy to the touch, through the cloth wraps wound around her hands. She could feel it, and it worried her, but she couldn’t afford to worry. She had to be strong, for her sister._

_“We haven’t lost anything, Brigitte.” She heard herself say, turning back ahead. “It’s lost us.”_

_Brigitte squeezed her hand tightly._

“Hey, pass us the ball?”

 

Ginger’s eyes snapped open and she stared at the floor. A ball came to rest by her feet.  She blinked, trying to reorder her thoughts quickly, before they slipped away.

 

Dumbly she kicked the ball across to a group of waving kids, but she ignored their grateful cries and stared at her open hand.

 

That had been different.

 

She’d felt it. Felt Brigitte take her hand. Not the other Ginger, but her hand. She’d been Ginger. She’d been on the horse, she’d been speaking, she’d had Brigitte clinging to her desperately, as they rode through the wilderness.

 

Had it always been like that? It hadn’t, she was sure of it. Before this, she’d been watching things happen, she’d seen them both, not like this. This was like…like a memory, like she’d been there. She’d seen everything through her own eyes. Ginger’s eyes.

 

What was next? They were lost in the woods, but what came next? She shut her eyes, trying to focus again. She’d managed it once, she could do it again. Drown out everything else. Think back. Think.

 

Maybe.

 

Ginger took a step forward, slowly, her boot crunched soft snow underfoot.

 

_The woods were silent around them as they slowly moved into the small, deserted village. A few empty, ragged tents, old, broken frames hanging up animal hides and hunting catches. Wooden chimes, ringing eerily as the wind blew through the place._

_The tents were torn, spattered, no, drenched in blood. Nothing moved. Ginger left the horse at the edge, as they explored. Neither comfortable, or at ease, but desperate for anything they could find, or use._

_“Ginger.” Brigitte whispered, urgently at her shoulder._

_Both turned, suddenly noticing an elderly native woman, stood quietly on her own, with her back to them._

_“Are you alright?” Ginger asked, approaching the woman cautiously. “What happened here?”_

_The woman turned suddenly, as they got closer, holding up two…frightful-looking pendants. The woman’s face was soft, worn, not unkind._

_“My sister. Gone. Many summers.” The woman said, as if reciting something. “In the wind, in the trees, and in the blood. Sisters.” The elder paced toward them, holding out the pendants._

_Ginger glanced at Brigitte, warily, who glanced back at her._

 

_“They were…hers and her sisters.” Brigitte murmured, haltingly._

_Ginger watched as her sister stepped forward and took the pendants, suddenly. She had no idea why._

_“Thank you.” Brigitte replied, her voice haggard and weary. “Say thank you, Ginger.” She insisted, putting on one of the necklaces._

_“…thanks.” Ginger echoed Brigitte, dubiously, keeping her eyes on the old woman as Brigitte put the other pendant around her neck._

_She wasn’t sure she liked any of this. Not a bit. Something felt…very wrong about this place, about everything here._

_“Kill the boy,” The elder said, suddenly, severely. “, or one sister kills the other.”_

_Ginger and Brigitte stiffened, as if the world had stopped around them. The old woman stared back, unflinching._

_Ginger went to ask what the mad old loner was talking about, when a noise behind them interrupted her._

_The horse!_

Ginger jumped, as if jolting awake from a light sleep. For a moment her legs wobbled and she thought she was going to fall over, as if her legs weren’t hers, and she’d forgotten how to use them or something.

 

“What…the fuck…” She mumbled, as she steadied herself, straightened out her head again.

 

Ginger. She was here, now, this Ginger. Not the other one, hundreds of years ago. But…it felt so… _real._

 

And all that with the old woman, the pendants they wore, and about killing a boy…that was completely new…

 

Ginger didn’t consider herself an expert, by any means, but she was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to be able to remember dreams quite like this. Or remember them differently… _or_ fucking remember dreams you _hadn’t even fucking had before_ , dreams that felt more like memories, recollections, things she’d felt and seen and done.

 

She glanced around, stuffing her hands back in her coat pocket. Maybe that was enough for today, it felt like enough to her. The experience had rattled her more than she liked.

 

Ginger noticed she’d wandered onto the area of the field set aside for her old high school. More empty than the rest of the green. Bleachers on the far side empty too. As spooked as she already was, it unsettled her even more. She turned to go back the way she came, when something caught her eye. There was someone on one of the bleachers. On their own.

 

She was pretty sure they were staring at her. Made her feel uneasy. Hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Made her remember, before everything, before the Beast of Bailey Downs…she and Brigitte on the field, Jason McCardy and his moron friends staring, watching them…watching…

 

“…Jason…?” She blinked, trying to make out the figure on the bleachers. “…gotta be fuckin’…” She started forward.

 

A dog barked loudly behind her, bounding into view across her path, followed by a bunch of laughing kids. She sidestepped them and pushed forward again, but the figure watching her on the bleachers was gone.

 

Ginger swept her glance around quickly, looking for any sign of…something. But there was nobody. The school building was still, empty. Nobody was there. Nobody.

 

Had it been him? How the fuck could it be him? She had to warn Brigitte. And tell her about what she’d seen, in her dreams…or…memories…whatever.

 

She took a step backward, still watching, on edge, before finally heading back the way she’d come.

 

…

 

Ginger let herself into the house, shedding her jacket and tossing it on one of the hooks. She missed. Didn’t care.

 

The house seemed quiet again. Brigitte was probably downstairs, but she’d expect to find Pam endlessly nattering away to herself or anyone in her proximity. Could have gone out, she supposed, as she headed for the basement stairs. That just left-

 

“Ginger.”

 

Ginger stopped in her tracks, turning to see Ghost in the doorway to the living room.

 

“I don’t have time for this.” Ginger waved her off and started to move.

 

Ghost actually reached out and grabbed her arm. Not hard, but enough to stop her. She stared at the hand until Ghost removed it.

 

“What do you want?” She asked, slowly, trying to control her temper.

 

The girl flinched, stepping back slightly.

 

“You hate me.”

 

“Yeah, I do.” Ginger replied, without hesitating.

 

“Your mom-”

 

“Pam.” Ginger interrupted.

 

“…she asked me to stay with her.” Ghost continued, recovering.

 

“Figured she would.” Ginger shrugged.

 

“You’re not taking me with you, are you?” Ghost asked.

 

“No.”

 

“Does Brigitte hate me?”

 

“I honestly don’t know. Or care.” She wanted out of this conversation, but Ghost seemed to have something she wanted to say.

 

“Your mom-”

 

“Pam.” Ginger interrupted, again.

 

“…is nice.” Ghost managed, after a pause. “I thought about taking her up on her offer. Would that bother you?”

 

Ginger looked to the basement stairs, then back at Ghost.

 

Okay, fine. Might as well settle this now.

 

“Pamela is my… _mother_.” Ginger said, reluctantly, pushing Ghost back against a wall. “I know what you are, I know what you’ve done, and I know you’re fucking nuts, so let me make this abundantly clear. You stay if you like, Pam will take care of you. It’s what she does, it’s what she wants to do. She wanted to take care of me and Brigitte, but we weren’t very good at that being a daughter thing, so you can have a go at it.”

 

“I-”

 

“Not finished.” Ginger held up her finger, then scowled at the frightened girl. “I don’t know where we’re going, but I fuckin’ swear I will be keeping tabs on Pam, and if she just happens to have some sorta fuckin’ accident I will come back for you and not even Brigitte will be able to save you from me.” She snarled.

 

“…um…” Ghost fumbled, terrified.

 

“Understood?”

 

“Y-yes.” Ghost nodded, enthusiastically.

 

“Good.” Ginger smiled, letting the girl go and straightening out her t-shirt. “Be her daughter, Ghost. Whoever you were before this is dead. Gone. Be somebody else. Be a Fitzgerald for all I care.”

 

“…thanks…I think?” Ghost said, confused.

 

Ginger nodded, slapping her shoulder.

 

“Have a nice life. Now get lost.”

 

With that, Ginger turned and hurried down the stairs. She had to talk to Brigitte. Sort through what she’d thought about and learned this afternoon, and warn her that maybe she’d seen Jason.

 

She wondered if Brigitte had finished with all that stuff she’d been doing earlier yet, as she reached the bedroom door and raised her fist to knock.

 

The door suddenly opened and Brigitte was standing there, face tired and eyes wide, staring, worn. She looked worried, frantic almost. Ginger found herself worrying that Brigitte looked worried, on top of her other worrying.

 

“We need to talk. What is it?”  
“What is it? We need to talk.” They both said at once.

 

Ginger and Brigitte stared at one another for a second.

 

“Get in here.” Brigitte said, grabbing her by the collar and hauling her inside.


End file.
